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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299912">Different Names for Different People</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/circe_violets/pseuds/circe_violets'>circe_violets</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Witness Protection AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:14:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,839</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/circe_violets/pseuds/circe_violets</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I need to speak to Andrew Minyard. Is he here?”</p><p>Andrew could almost hear the gears in Nicky’s brain whirring and coming to a rest at completely the wrong conclusion. “Ah, I’m afraid you don’t want to pick that fight, cutie like you are. Trust me, he has knives on him, I wouldn’t-“</p><p>Nicky didn’t get to finish his sentence, because the man shoved past him and into the room. Andrew was on his feet in an instant with one of those very knives out, mentally running through every fight he’s had recently, every threat he’s noted around campus, assessing the man in front of him for weapons and threats- and stops short. </p><p>Abram had changed, in the last four years. He’d filled out- not much, but he no longer looked like a child. Blue eyes, he noted- unfamiliar, like the rest of this new image, but still part of a face Andrew had never been able to forget.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aaron Minyard &amp; Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten &amp; Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten &amp; Mary Hatford, Neil Josten &amp; The Foxes (All For The Game), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>767</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Merry Christmas! This isn’t particularly festive, although I tried to throw a few nods to the holiday in, but I hope you enjoy!!! This isn’t edited yet, but it will be by this time tomorrow, but now that I’ve put in the sparse festive mentions I felt I had to post it before midnight when its officially Christmas where I am. </p><p>TW: Graphic descriptions of injuries and scars. Brief mention of Andrew’s self harm and reference to his abuse.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Andrew licked the sugar off his fingers and ignored Kevin’s bitching. He wasn’t particularly eager to be here in the first place, crammed onto a sofa with a broken spring digging into his thigh and listening to Dan and Matt’s flirting. You’d think with all the cash Allison waved around, she could afford to buy the girl’s dorm a better sofa, but apparently not. As such, Andrew wasn’t in the best mood, and if he had to deal with Kevin telling him he was going to die of diabetes one more time, he would drag them all back to their own dorms and go to bed, no matter how much Kevin insisted this was a necessary team bonding experience.</p><p>As it was, he was stuck in Renee’s dorm, complete with Christmas tree and tinsel, with the smell of Allison’s nail polish fumes and Seth’s burnt popcorn filling the room. Nicky was wearing the same glittery Santa hat that had adorned his head for the last month, leaving a trail of “Christmas cheer” and micro-plastics behind it as Nicky toted it from room to room in a futile attempt to imbue some excitement for the holiday in his cousins. He remained unsuccessful- the only concession to Christmas Andrew had made was eating every candy cane he came across exceedingly loudly in front of Kevin.</p><p>His own suggestion of Die Hard had been shot down, on the grounds that ‘it wasn’t a proper Christmas movie”, and after almost half an hour of bickering about whether to watch Love Actually or It’s A Wonderful Life, they weren’t even watching a Christmas movie at all: a compromise no one seemed happy with had been reached, and they were watching Brooklyn 99 episodes that he had memorised word for word.</p><p>Sure, fuck the police, but sometimes his eidetic memory was very helpful- he could play back the episodes in his brain like a movie with perfect recall. As such, he was spending less time focusing on the TV and more time watching Aaron’s stupid smile as he texted his cheerleader where he thought Andrew couldn’t see him.</p><p>He could watch Aaron even closer when Seth stopped blocking his line of sight, stretching his arms and using it as an opportunity to subtly shift closer to the beanbag Allison was reclining on like a throne. Seth opened his mouth, probably to grovel or flirt or bitch, Andrew didn’t care which, but was interrupted by the shrill shriek of the dorm’s doorbell.</p><p>Nicky let out a whoop, pushing to his feet and stumbling slightly towards the door to collect the pizza they’d ordered to try and balance out the copious amounts of alcohol he and Kevin had already consumed. Andrew didn’t bother watching him trip over his own feet on the way to the door, until he heard the click of the door opening and confusion from Nicky.</p><p>“Um, hello? Are you from the pizza company?” His voice was wary, and Andrew didn’t miss the way he kept a tight grip on the door handle.</p><p>“No.” The voice was quiet, and sounded somehow strained. Andrew twisted in his seat, nudging Matt out the way slightly, and craned his head to look at the door, but whoever it was was dwarfed behind Nicky and hidden from view.</p><p>“I need to speak to Andrew Minyard. Is he here?”</p><p>Andrew could almost hear the gears in Nicky’s brain whirring and coming to a rest at completely the wrong conclusion. He relaxed his grip on the door and Andrew could tell from the change in his voice that he’d switched to ‘charming de-escalation mode’ as he smiled at the stranger. “Ah, I’m afraid you don’t want to pick that fight, cutie like you are. Trust me, he has knives on him, I wouldn’t-“</p><p>Nicky didn’t get to finish his sentence, because the man shoved past him and into the room. Andrew was on his feet in an instant with one of those very knives out, ignoring Allison’s squawk of protest and Seth’s swearing. Mentally, he ran through every fight he’s had recently, every threat he’s noted around campus, assessing the man in front of him for weapons and threats- and stops short.</p><p> </p><p>Abram had changed, in the last five years. He’d filled out- not much, but he no longer looked like a child. His hair was auburn, and his face was littered with scars that kindle a fire in Andrew’s stomach. Blue eyes, he noted- unfamiliar, like the rest of this new image, but still part of a face Andrew had never been able to forget.</p><p>For a moment, they were silent. Abram took him in, ignoring the questions and the TV still running. In return, Andrew took in the panic in his eyes, and the way Abram was hunched over slightly with his right hand fluttering uselessly around his stomach. His own hand was itching to reach for a knife at the danger the idiot had to be bringing after him, but was kept in place by what might even have been relief at the sight of a man supposed to be long dead.</p><p>It was Andrew who broke first, but his flat tone revealed nothing. “What are you doing here, Abram?”</p><p>Abram didn’t answer, but some of the panic in his eyes eased at Andrew’s use of the name he’d whispered in secret, all those years ago. All of a sudden, the dam was broken, and he stumbled towards the sofa. He reached out, eyes blown wide and desperate, almost touching Andrew, but stopped himself at the last second to leave his hand hovering over one black armband until permission was given. Once, he wouldn’t have needed it. But then, it had been a long time since they’d last seen each other.</p><p> </p><p>Instead, Abram dropped his hand, pressing it to the right side of his stomach with a wince before pulling up his shirt to reveal a blood-soaked piece of cloth wrapped around his waist. When he spoke, Andrew could hear the strain in his voice become even more pronounced. Abram gingerly unwrapped what looked like an old t-shirt to reveal a mess of open wounds and red flesh pulsing gently across his abdomen.</p><p>“I was stabbed twice, it’s been about three hours and my hands were shaking too much to stitch it up. I’m going to pass out soon.”<br/>His voice was shaky, but the words were steady and calculated, almost clinical. Abram knew exactly what he was doing. He swayed slightly on his feet, but held Andrew’s gaze steadily, ignoring the cries from the Foxes and the questions, until Andrew snapped his fingers at Aaron.</p><p>“You heard him. Aaron, tell me what to do. Matt, call Abby. Tell her it’s an emergency.”</p><p>Aaron rushed over, cursing as he guided Abram to lay back on the sofa and apply pressure onto the gaping wound, with Matt babbling into his phone in the background. Nicky wrung his hands next to Andrew, seemingly torn between staring at the scars adorning Abram’s torn abdomen and cringing away from the gore, and eventually settled on looking imploringly at Andrew instead.</p><p>“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance? He needs stitches, Andrew, he needs to go to a hospital-“ He was quickly interrupted by two similarly harsh voices, although one of them gasped at the end of the sentence.</p><p>“No hospitals.”</p><p>He and Abram had said it in unison, Andrew realised, but he didn’t acknowledge it other than to fold his arms and look down at the idiot who was bleeding out onto Matt’s shitty sofa. He didn’t need the reminder that he’d once known this idiot junkie as well as he’d known himself- that he knew things from Abram’s favorite ice cream flavour- sorbet, because he was a heathen- to the origin of almost all those scars, to the reason why Abram couldn’t risk going to a hospital, not now, not ever.</p><p>But apparently there were new things, too. Because his hair was a fiery auburn, and his eyes were a blue he’d always hidden behind contacts, even with Andrew. There was a large strip of skin down his side that was discolored and uneven, with what Andrew recognized as road rash. He would have laughed at the irony, if he didn’t feel like punching something so much.</p><p> </p><p>********************</p><p>
  <em>Alex was hovering behind his shoulder again , peering at the book Andrew was poring over in an manner that showed he was obviously curious about what Andrew was so interested in- but Andrew knew he wasn’t going to ask. He wouldn’t just ask for what he wanted, no, that would be far too easy for him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’d just do what he’d been doing all summer- arriving to the dusty yard the same time Andrew did, sitting on the electrical box and watching him when he lay on his back smoking, hovering tentatively near as Andrew fiddled with tennis balls or shreds of paper. For weeks, he hadn’t said anything, even though he’d obviously wanted to, until Andrew had gotten sick of green eyes focused on his back for hours on end. He’d looked up at Alex, who had looked somehow startled to have been caught looking. An olive branch had been extended in the form of a proffered cigarette, which Alex had cradled while looking slightly lost.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew hadn’t been expecting much from someone who showed all signs of being absolutely clueless, and with nothing more interesting to do with their life than stare at his side profile as he wasted time. He certainly hadn’t expected Alex to have so much more than just his adorably fluffy hair and doe eyes to offer to the conversation. He was funny, with snide, dry comments on the kids who interrupted their peaceful yard and the potbellied, tired-looking adults who half-heartedly watched over them. He had opinions on everything, and as soon as you got him started he could ramble for hours about how cats were better than dogs- even though he admitted he’d never owned either. Andrew had never really considered his opinion on the subject matter, associating pets with foster homes that ignored their cats and dogs as much as they’d ignored him, but he’d been convinced by Alex’s surprisingly passionate and eloquent argument.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He was beautiful, albeit in a somewhat washed-out way, his hair sandy, features delicate but swamped with baggy hoodies and old shirts, as if he was trying his best to be unremarkable. He achieved the affect well enough to fool most passers-by, but Andrew wasn’t so easily fooled. If you really looked at him, he was almost too beautiful, too interesting, too full of inquiring insights and stupid jokes- and that was the issue. Alex was the first person Andrew had encountered whose presence he’d actually miss if they stopped talking too him- well, except Aaron maybe. But with Aaron, he’d been preparing himself for his hatred ever since he’d realized that Tilda needed to go, through any means necessary. With Alex, Andrew wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself if he said no- and so he didn’t ask.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It should have been easy, because he’d had practice enough. In juvie, it was simple. He picked someone who was obviously frustrated, who needed some stress relieved. He hung back, made his intentions clear, and asked a simple “yes or no?”. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes they got defensive, angry and violent, and Andrew dealt with it with his fists and that carefully cultivated blank expression.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It would have been easy, if not for the fact that Alex was hovering behind him again. Seemingly unable to start their conversations. As if he was just waiting for Andrew to shut him down, as if Andrew was going to somehow punish him if he did, as if Andrew would <strong>ever</strong>-</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Obviously, Alex was just as scared of rejection as he was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So Andrew let him hover in his peripheral vision for a few more minutes, before taking pity on the idiot and turning to him. He raised his eyebrows at Alex’s nervous face, and apparently this was the permission he felt he needed to settle down next to Andrew on the electrical box and nod his head at the book.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What are you reading?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew folded over the corner of his page and handed it over, letting Alex puzzle over the copy of “Automobile Repairs and Common Problems”. He let himself indulge for a few seconds in the way Alex scrunched up his freckled nose and propped his hand under his jaw as he squinted at the grey paperback, stamped with the library’s address. It didn’t last too long, because he made sure to avert his gaze before Alex looked up at him and frowned.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You know this is outdated, right? Tilda’s car isn’t going to have that kind of engine.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew snorted. Tilda’s car looked like it was older than he was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What are you trying to do, anyway? Is there an issue? I’m good with cars, I can take a look at it.” Alex looked hopeful, his eyes wide in a way that Andrew hated that he couldn’t resist. He looked away, up at the sky that somehow looked just as dusty as the rest of this fucking town he couldn’t wait to leave.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Maybe he should just tell him the truth. Reveal his monstrous sides, scare Alex off once and for all, and never have to avoid the eyes of this beautiful boy as he agonized over whether to speak up again. Alex should share his brilliant theories and perfect eyes and witty remarks with someone who actually deserved to be his friend, not just the first person he’d latched onto when he was new to the area. Never mind that Andrew was new too, that he had a brother high off his ass and a mother constantly raging, that this was maybe the first time in his life he’d wanted to keep talking to someone forever.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He made a decision, one that hurt in the same way he’d been craving and going back for more of since the first time he’d sat in a bathroom with a razor blade to his wrist. He took a breath, hands fumbling for another cigarette, and didn’t look at Alex as he spoke.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“I need to crash her car. I’m thinking I’ll pretend I’m Aaron, pick a moment when she’ll be expecting me to be meek and docile and drugged up-“ he was spitting the words, still looking up at the sky, “-a moment when she’s not wearing her seatbelt, and then grab the steering wheel and ram the car into a tree through the driver’s side.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He was angry, for some reason. Angry at Alex and his stupid fucking eyes, angry at himself both for letting himself be weak enough to have a friend and for pushing that friend away, angry at Tilda, angry at Aaron, angry at Higgins and Cass and Drake and Stephen and Mark and Micheal-</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>When the fire slowly seeped out of him, it was replaced with icy nausea as the silence stretched out. He took another breath, another drag of his cigarette, and dared to peek at Alex beside him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He was reading the book. The fucker was reading Automobile Repairs and Common Problems. For once, their positions were switched- Alex was unerringly focused on a task, or was pretending to be, and Andrew was staring at his side profile desperately waiting for him to say something. And almost as if it was revenge for earlier, Alex let him wait a couple of minutes before taking pity on him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Well.” His voice was light, and unbothered. “That’s not the way to go about it. Look here, chapter seven: we can file down that bit there almost entirely, cut the brake wires. Then you set up some life insurance, make sure you and Aaron have something to live on and a place to go when she’s dead. You’re only sixteen, they won’t let you live alone- you have to plan these kind of things.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew just stared at him in disbelief. He’d said <strong>‘we’</strong>. Somehow, Alex had just rocked Andrew’s entire world, and he hadn’t even looked up from his book as he did it, although somehow he’d conveyed the reproach in his tone plenty effectively.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“And you won’t be in the car, that’s ridiculous. We wouldn’t be able to control the crash as well, be so sure of the outcome, if we have to plan for a survivor in the passenger seat. Even if you did somehow survive your idea, you’d be either trapped in a collapsed car or flung out of it as it careens down a motorway. You’d break your legs, not to mention the damage the tarmac would do to your skin. That’s how you get road rash, Andrew.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>*****************</em>
</p><p>And now they were here. Four years later, with different names for different people. God knows how many Abram had been through in that time- but Andrew had the striking thought that Abram didn’t know his now, either. Or maybe he did, if he’d found Andrew so easily, but Andrew hadn’t been able to tell Abram himself when he changed his name from Doe to Minyard. He’d put the paperwork in, but he’d wanted to wait to tell him until it was official. He’d never got the chance, although he thought with a certain amount of hysteria that Abram would have smiled. Bee would tell him hysteria was probably warranted, given the situation of his childhood crush and confidant bleeding out on a teammate’s sofa.</p><p><em>Why are you here?</em> He wanted to ask, but he doubted Abram would answer that at all, let alone with all these witnesses. Maybe he would have more luck with something along the lines of <em>Where did you go?</em></p><p>The fucking rabbit hadn’t even left a note, all those years ago. Hadn’t bothered to try and contact him. Andrew knew he was probably being unfair, because he’d known why Abram and his mother were running, but at sixteen and even now he couldn’t tamp down the flare of hurt it had sparked- or the voice in his head that laughed mockingly, and started listing off all the reasons why people kept wanting to leave Andrew behind.</p><p>Abram hadn’t wanted to leave. That much he believed. But he had, and without him Andrew had almost given up on the promise they’d made on top of an electrical box in a dusty field, because there was no way in hell he’d ever see him again. There was no guarantee that Abram would even still be out there, not when he was running from people more powerful and blood-thirsty than Andrew ever would be.</p><p>In fact, maybe that should be his first question. <em>How are you alive?</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abby seemed momentarily surprised to see Andrew still on her sofa when she closed the door to the guest room behind her. It was late- or early, now- and she’d called Wymack to shepherd the rest of the Foxes home hours ago while she’d got to work on Abram’s injuries. Wymack was clearly as eager for information as the rest of them, but had sent the team back to the dorms with a few gruff words, and a promise to be back tomorrow morning. Wisely, he’d taken one look at Andrew camped on Abby’s floral armchair and had left him there without argument.</p><p>Now, Abby looked exhausted, both from the late hour and presumably the ordeal of dealing with the idiot that had been bleeding out on her guest mattress mere hours ago. She rubbed her cheek, and gestured towards the door Andrew had been staring at.</p><p>“He’ll be okay. He’s lost a lot of blood, but it hasn’t hit anything major- most of the damage was done to the protective tissue around his organs. He’ll need to drink something sugary to get his energy back up, and stay in bed for a couple of days. He’ll need to rest up.” With her clinical nurse feedback over, the woman paused, and her face crumpled. Her shoulders hunched, eyes filling with tears.</p><p>“What’s going on, Andrew?” Abby slumped into the sofa opposite him, wiping the dampness from her eyes. “Who is he?” She fixed him with a stare that, while it was framed in a face that was lined with age and weariness, froze him in place and made him want to tell her everything.</p><p>Except, he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know what was going on, or who Abram was right now, or what he was doing here. So he just stared back at her, and they looked at each other from matching furniture on opposite sides of a dark room. Abby looked away first, sniffling and pulling a cushion into her lap.</p><p>She hugged it tight to her, fingers toying with the pink fringe trimming. Andrew watched, silent, fixated on her hands so he could avoid her eyes. Abby sighed. “Look, Andrew. I don’t know who he is to you, but he was asking about Aaron, about Nicky, about whether you’re happy.”</p><p>It was an invitation for Andrew to share his feelings, but Abby was one of two people who’d closely inspected the scars on his arms, and he didn’t really feel like exposing any more vulnerability to a woman who, while well-meaning, knew nothing about him or the reasons they were there. Instead, he jerked his chin towards the door hiding from view the other person who’d seen the parts of himself he’d hidden away.</p><p>“Can I talk to him?”<br/>His voice was rougher than he’d intended it to be, almost a whisper. Abby half smiled ruefully, and shook her head.</p><p>“He’s asleep. There’s a chair in there, though.”</p><p>Andrew nodded, and she reached under the sofa to pull out two blankets, and met him in the middle of the room to press one of them, along with a pillow, into his arms. “I’ll sleep on the sofa, okay? I want to be within shouting distance if there’s an issue.”<br/>He nodded, and hoped she knew it meant <em>thank you</em>. She gave him another sad smile, as if to say <em>it’s okay</em>.<br/>“You kids are going to be the death of me, you know that?”</p><p>It was probably true, but Andrew wasn’t one to give comfort, so he just nodded again and padded over to the door. When it clicked behind him, he was met with the sight of Abram, hands curled into the sheets and eyelashes brushing his cheeks. He was wearing Abby’s pyjama bottoms and a Green Day t-shirt that was definitely Wymack’s, and was definitely enough evidence to win Allison a lot of money- which is why Andrew wasn’t going to mention it. He was sure that Abram’s arrival had spurred enough bets as it was, so the team could entertain themselves for a while.</p><p>Abram had owned a t-shirt just like this, when they were kids. Andrew wondered where it had ended up, after disappearing from the flat Alex and Louise had been squatting in along with every other trace of their existence.</p><p>*********************</p><p>
  <em>Today, Alex had brought a stack of papers to file for legal emancipation he’d printed off in the public library, and several life insurance brochures.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew wasn’t quite sure why he was letting him run this operation, and he was even less sure why Alex was so nonchalant about the murder they were planning. Either Alex was pretending to be a tougher than he was, or somehow, by some miracle, Andrew had found someone just as fucked up as he was. It seemed unlikely, but perhaps he was overdue for some luck in his shitty life.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For now, though, the papers were just sitting in the open side pocket of Alex’s duffle bag, and they were surveying the scene of the yard from their usual spot. Luckily, although it was blisteringly hot under the South Carolina sun, Andrew was used to California heat and had managed to stay calm and collected as they idly watched a woman of about twenty across the street throw her boyfriend out of the house. Alex wasn’t having such a good time though, fanning himself and tugging on the collar of the enormous Green Day band t-shirt he was wearing as if to let the cool air in.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew resolutely didn’t look, either as Alex huffed or when he plucked at the idiot’s collar, letting the fabric ping back at Alex who pretended to be knocked over by the force of it. He grimaced in distaste, both at the shirt, and Alex’s awful acting. “Where d’you find these t-shirts, anyway? You’re always drowning in fabric. Maybe try something that’s not grey, ripped or obviously twenty years old for once.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Alex grinned ruefully, and scuffed his feet against the dry gravel underneath them. “Yeah, I think my mom thought I’d grow more than I did. I’ve only had this for six months, though!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, but you clearly bought it from a thrift shop. You hate Green Day.” Andrew had discovered this after an afternoon of playing Alex songs he’d apparently never heard of through his walkman, only for Alex to proclaim that he ‘didn’t get’ American Idiot.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now, Alex smiled back at him, and hummed his agreement. “Mm. Not really my thing, too shouty.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew scoffed, and Alex nudged his leg with his foot. “You like it, though.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew short-circuited for a moment, but managed to come back with a reply, albeit one that sounded far too petulant for his liking. “I like the band, <strong>not</strong> your t-shirt.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>For a while, they simply just watched the man across the street grovel as the woman threw clothes at him from the second-floor window and hurls insults in French. Andrew wondered why the fuck she ever moved to South Carolina. Alex chuckled when she let loose a new torrent of screaming, presumably because of the way the man ducks as she throws a pair of his trainers at his head.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Eventually, he’d had enough- he loaded the collection of strewn fabric into the backseat of his rundown car and drove away with a middle finger out the window.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>The woman screamed at him to stay away, before turning away from the window and sobbing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alex watched the car get smaller, and said, “You ever thought about running away?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew knew the answer immediately, but let himself mull over how to word it for a few seconds. Eventually, he settled on “Thought about it- yes.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alex didn’t look surprised, just thoughtful, when he turned to face him and asked, “Where would you go?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>This, Andrew hadn’t contemplated. He’d thought about running away as an abstract concept, rather than a solid plan he could work towards. He supposed a lot of his ideas happened like that- Tilda, for one. Suddenly faced with the need to think things through, though, he came to the vaguely disconcerting realization that he already knew exactly what he wanted.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“A city, I guess. I’d work in a bookshop, or a bar or something. I wouldn’t talk to anyone.” <strong>You’d be there</strong>, he left unsaid and unheard, and filled in the blank space it left with “Maybe I’d get a cat.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At this, Alex chuckled. “So I convinced you, huh?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew didn’t smile back, but he was sure Alex could see the way his eyes flashed with humor. “I suppose you did. Mainly because I don’t have the energy to argue, but-“</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Ah!” Alex pointed a finger at him, accusingly, “don’t lie to me, Andrew, I can see you with a kitten- maybe two kittens, a crazy cat dad- what would you call them?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew scoffed. “I wouldn’t name them.” It was a lie. It sobered him, for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate, and it left the conversation stagnant, with a pause stretching out until Andrew felt the uncomfortable silence like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It wouldn’t work, though. I couldn’t leave Aaron here with Tilda and Luther.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>The conversation had changed, like a shadow suddenly cast over a summers day, leaving them cold and underdressed. Alex shuddered in it, hands tapping against his knee with nervous energy he can never quite expel. Andrew reveled in the cold, in the uneasy atmosphere he’d created.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Forget Aaron-“ Alex said, as if Andrew could forget anything at all, let alone the brother he would sacrifice two mothers for- “if it was just you, would you run away?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew wouldn’t let himself consider it. He wasn’t going to let himself hope. Instead, he pushed the conversation to the enigma beside him. “Would you?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Alex laughed slightly, bitterly, and said, “<strong>all I ever do is run away.”</strong></em>
</p><p><em>He said it like it was a secret Andrew already knew, like he was referencing an inside joke they’d had for years, and then freezes as if he’d accidentally revealed more than he intended to. Alex’s throat bobbed, and Andrew was captivated by the delicate movement. Entranced, he spoke without realising it, but for once his subconscious and the bits of his brain he couldn’t control </em>weren’t working against him.</p><p>
  <em>“Run away from what?”</em>
</p><p>*********************</p><p>A noise abruptly jerked Andrew out of the sleep he’d fallen into. His eyes snapped open, to see Abram carefully breathing through his nose as he maneuvered his way into a sitting up position, a noise of protest escaping him despite his best efforts.<br/>Andrew shifted in his chair, just barely, but Abram’s eyes snapped to him and for a second they are filled with pure panic. The wild look in his eyes was gone in a flash, but they both knew Andrew had seen it.</p><p>“Abram.” The word felt heavy on his tongue, significant, and Andrew weighed his next words carefully. “Or should I be calling you something else, now?” His voice is harsh, the words spiteful, and Andrew can see Abram’s flinch, but he can’t help but feel a little vindictive.</p><p>When Abram finds his tongue, his voice is quiet and wary. “Yes, actually. Neil Josten. Neil Abram Josten.” It was unexpected, and Andrew didn’t quite know what to do with the bit of truth revealed. Abram hadn’t told him any names when they were kids, only that he and his mother were running from his father and a gang along the west coast; there was no way that his mother ever would have let him keep Abram as a middle name.</p><p>In fact, if he’d understood Alex’s stories, she never wouldn’t have let Abram be here alone, get injured, and find Andrew. He had questions, ones he desperately wanted answered, but none more than the first one out of his mouth. After all, there was no sense getting attached again if Abram was planning on running again.</p><p>“Is the name going to stick? Or are you going to leave me without warning for another four years?” It was an admission, one that revealed how much he’d missed the idiot, and Abram could tell, if the softening of his eyes was anything to go by.</p><p>“It’s legal this time.” Abram- Neil- said. “I’m in witness protection. My father died two years ago, and they kept me hidden in Colorado in a safe house while they dismantled his gang and rounded up the people leading it. I told them what I knew, and once I’d testified and they’d got their use out of me, they decided it was safe enough to send me off with enough money for one month’s rent.” Neil snorted, and gestured down at his stomach. “They were wrong, obviously.”</p><p>Andrew kept his voice deliberately flat as he asked, “Who did it?”<br/>Neil shrugged, and settled back against the wall. “Two low-level thugs out for revenge, as far as I can tell. I dealt with them.”<br/>Andrew didn’t doubt it, but he wasn’t too happy about Neil needing to protect himself- those fuckers in the FBI should have been keeping him safe. It was Witness <em>Protection</em>, although apparently that didn’t matter took much to them now that they’d got all the information they could out of Abram.</p><p>He cooled the raging fire in his chest and forced his voice back into blankness they could both see through to say, “And your mom?”<br/>“Dead.” Andrew had figured as much. He’d never met her, but from Abram’s stories she was a harsh, paranoid and controlling woman, and there was no way she ever would have sold out to the cops. “It was the reason I went to the FBI. She got shot in Seattle, and we drove to California before I got a chance to burn the car on a beach with her body in it. But I hadn’t gone far enough; I was interrupted and had to run, so most of our cash went up in flames along with her body.”</p><p>Neil sighed, and reached for a pillow to prop behind his back. He winced as he arranged it, but waved off Andrew when he moved to help. “I couldn’t keep going, I- I was tired of it all, I guess.”</p><p>Andrew let the information settle, musing over it before reaching a new question. “Why did Witness Protection drop you here? They must have known that you coming back to South Carolina wasn’t safe- you said his gang was all along the west coast.”</p><p>Neil held his gaze, and simply said, “I asked. They tried to convince me to go to Texas, or Chicago, but I’ve been following you in the news. I watch every Foxes game you play in. It’s why it took me so long to get approved, because they were trying to round up the stragglers and eliminate the danger before they let me go- realistically, they knew they couldn’t stop me.”</p><p>Now this, Andrew hadn’t been expecting at all. He blinked, and tried to wrap his mind around the concept that Abram had <em>come back</em> to see <em>him</em>. To see Andrew, who people left all the time but who no one, ever, had come back for. He didn’t know what the emotions he was feeling were, or what to do with them. Bee was going to have a field day with this. He opened his mouth, to say what, he didn't know- maybe to confess he’d missed him, maybe to confess he’d spent years searching for any hint of Abram, maybe to confess he’d never forgotten the promises they’d made each other.</p><p>Instead, what came out of his mouth was, “Nice pajama pants.”<br/>Neil’s face cracked into a grin, and he straightened out a leg to show off Abby’s pajamas in their full glory. “Hmm, yeah, I think floral’s really my thing. What d’you think of the look, huh?”</p><p>Andrew had never been so thankful for a change in conversation. He would analyze his turbulent emotions and assess the situation- decide what he was going to do with the idiot in front of him, with Aaron, with the fucking FBI. For now, he snorted, and settled next to Neil on the bed, and said, “I think you look like you borrowed a fifty year old woman’s clothing and a t-shirt for a band you don’t even like.”</p><p>Neil gasped, mock offended, and gently kicked him. “I know the songs!” To Andrew’s horror and amusement, he started singing- badly, in the way people do when they heard a song twice four years ago and don’t know the lyrics.<br/>“<em>Don’t wanna be an American idiot! Na na na na something fuck America-“</em></p><p>He was cut off by Andrew’s phone ringing. He’d had it on Do Not Disturb for the night, mainly to avoid Nicky, but he’d set it years ago to let Aaron through no matter what. He dug it out of his pocket and answered, ignoring Neil’s look of concern, only to be met with Kevin’s voice.</p><p>“Andrew! I called you a thousand times, why-“<br/>“<em>What do you want, Kevin?</em>”<br/>Kevin let out a sigh that was tinged with both relief and fear. “Finally. I had to call from Aaron’s phone-“<br/>“What is going on, Kevin?” Andrew spoke through gritted teeth, mind swirling with thoughts of those thugs, or others from the gang, following Abram’s tail to finish the job.</p><p>“I need to speak to him. Abram- he looks just like- I need to know if it’s really him.”<br/>Andrew was going to strangle the man. “Really <em>who</em>, Kevin?”<br/>From the other side of the line, Andrew could hear Kevin swallow as he psyched himself up to say it. “<strong>Nathaniel Wesninski</strong>.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>************************</p><p>
  <em>It’s a lot to take in, the story Alex weaved, it’s fabric made of violence, mobsters and runaways. It had some holes, though- ones so deliberately left that Andrew couldn’t help but miss their absence- in the form of names, locations and dates. He got why, of course. To be honest, he didn’t fully understand why Alex was telling him this at all; seemingly just because Andrew asked him too, with no strings attached and expecting nothing in return. The only thing Alex had asked for was Andrew’s silence with his secrets.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The confusion, however, was nothing next to the way Andrew was drawn in by Alex’s story, by everything about this enigma of a boy sitting next to him who was one mystery on top of another, pieced together by lies and blending into the shadows in everyone’s eyes except Andrew’s.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“So, all of <strong>this</strong>-“ Andrew gestured to Alex’s hair, his eyes, his everything, “-is a lie?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Alex nodded slightly, and through his entrancement Andrew couldn’t help feeling betrayed. Betrayed, or maybe grief-stricken, as if the boy he’d revealed so much of himself to, had deceived him, or perhaps had never really existed at all. Maybe he hadn’t- after all, how much of this identity was a lie?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was selfish to want more than the truths he’s been given on credit, he knew that- when Alex’s survival depended on secrecy, it was deplorable to want to know more, to drink in every scrap of knowledge offered up. But for the first time he could remember, Andrew was feeling utterly, unashamedly selfish. When it came to Alex, it was easy; to be selfish, to want, to take every scrap of affection and hoard it all for himself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So he gave in to wanting, and almost begged, “tell me something true.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Alex looked stricken. “I- I can’t do that, Andrew, I can’t tell you my real name or my dad’s or anything like that. My mom would drag us to Mexico if she knew I’d told you this, let alone if I’d said anything that could identify us-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew cut him off, a hand hovering over Alex’s arm and gently grazing his freckled skin when he didn’t pull away. “I won’t say anything. Do you trust that?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Alex looked almost surprised as he let out a shaky breath and nodded. “I trust you not to sell me out,” he said, and Andrew knew the ‘but’ was coming before the word left his mouth, “but Andrew, you don’t understand who these people are. If they got ahold of you, they’d get information out of you in any way possible, then leave you to dissolve in a septic tank!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He couldn’t have said why he was so desperate for something real to latch onto, except that maybe he was someone who looked at the world in black and white, and Alex was someone who existed exclusively in greys.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“It can be anything at all, just- “ he cut himself off, because he wasn’t going to beg. Pleading never got you anywhere. If Alex really didn’t want to tell him, he wouldn’t push it. Instead, he almost whispered his words, as he said,“<strong>tell me something true.</strong>”</em>
</p><p><em>Alex worried his lip between his teeth, but Andrew could see in his eyes that this was a truth he wanted to share. He whispered the name like it was somethin</em> <em>g holy- a confession, and maybe it was. “<strong>Abram</strong>”</em></p><p> </p><p>************************</p><p> </p><p>Neil grit his teeth and clutched his stomach, but swallowed down the painkillers a flustered Abby had pressed into his hand and made it very clear that if Andrew didn’t drive him, he was going to stagger over to where Kevin is by himself, stab wounds and all. When they sat in the GS, Andrew opened his mouth to go over the argument they’d already had twice over rushed toast and guzzled coffee. He would go <em>“You were stabbed, idiot- Kevin can fucking wait with whatever he thinks he knows-“</em> and Neil would ignore him and mutter something about how ‘it had been a long enough wait already.</p><p>Andrew didn’t know why Kevin of all people seemed to know more about Neil’s situation than he currently did, but he guessed it was something to do with the circus of horrors Kevin had been pulled out of two years ago when the cops had busted Castle Evermore. When he’d arrived in Palmetto, drunk and shaking and clutching a letter he hadn’t let anyone read, Andrew had been able to pry the truth out of him about the yakuza empire behind the Ravens. He’d gathered all the information he needed about the Moriyamas, a disgraced Tetsuji’s “retirement” back to Japan, and Riko’s “suicide” when the main branch of the family had done the maths and realized how much negative attention he was bringing them compared to the amount of money, and had decided he was better off as someone for the public to mourn than worship.</p><p>From Abram’s stories when they were teenagers, though, his father was higher up than just muscle for another gang. His father had been rich enough for them to run for years on the money they’d stolen from him, and apparently Abram and his mother had been important enough to spend years chasing them through three continents.</p><p>Abram had shown him the binder in his duffel bag once, and the coded contacts and bonds he had stashed between it’s flimsy plastic wallets- which Andrew ignored in favour of teasing him relentlessly about the way he flushed red every time his stalker-like crush on all things “Perfect Court” was brought up.</p><p>So sure, Neil knew about Kevin. After the bust on Castle Evermore, anyone with any kind of intimate knowledge of how criminal empires worked- or anyone with eyes, really- would have known the hazing and abuse of athletes beneath the stadium was the least of the illicit activities going on there. With the contacts Neil had, it was a sure thing that he knew every detail about Kevin’s life available, whether that was to the general public and authorities or, most likely, not.</p><p>But what was curious was that Kevin seemed to know Neil, too. From what he’d told Andrew, he’d never been involved or trusted with any of the business going on in the East Tower, and had spent his life obsessing with his mothers sport and perfecting his megawatt press smile. He shouldn’t know an enforcers’ son.</p><p><em>Nathaniel Wesninski</em>. It sounded Polish, Andrew thought. If Neil’s father was dead and the FBI had taken down his empire, there would be media coverage out there- perhaps not much, if the pigs were keeping it under wraps, but googling there name was sure to return hundreds of results. It had probably been all over the TV, too- in the years he and Nicky hadn’t been able to afford cable and they’d got their news from whatever channel the staff break room was playing at Eden’s. To think that his search might have been over years ago if he’d just <em>known where to look-</em></p><p>He wasn’t going to google it. Neil would tell him when he wanted to, or maybe he’d be enlightened by the conversation they were currently driving towards, as the court came into view. He pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine, only to see Neil gazing up at the court as if it was a miracle that would heal his stab wound with the magic of day-glo orange beams. The idiot junkie looked so awestruck it almost overshadowed the way he gasped as he slowly levered himself out the car and swallowed with nerves as he steeled himself to face Kevin. Andrew looked away in disgust. Even someone as stupidly attractive as Abram had their flaws, he supposed.</p><p>They made their way into the building, with Andrew punching in the code- Kayleigh day’s birthday- in with one hand and letting Neil clutch his other arm. It was either the shittiest stab wound ever, or Neil was incredibly good at ignoring his pain, because he just used it to stabilise himself and focused intently on the court coming into view.</p><p>Halfway down the corridor, though, Wymack stepped out of his office. Immediately, Neil flinched away from the man’s thunderous expression, nails digging into Andrew’s armbands, and Wymack eased up on the tension, lifting his hands in a placating gesture.</p><p>“Chill out, kid. I’m staying over here. If you’re looking for Kevin, he’s on the court, but Andrew, you and me are going to need to talk about <em>this</em>,” he gestured at Neil, and between the two of them, “when practice is done. You can’t just have a childhood friend turn up with a stab wound that Abby needs to treat in her own house rather than a goddamned hospital, without giving me a proper explanation.” He waited until Andrew nodded shortly before stepping aside, and calling after them both, “And for once it’s you who owes me a bottle of good whisky, Minyard!”</p><p>It was probably fair.</p><p>Neil looked slightly shaken at the incident, throwing a glance back over his shoulder as Wymack retreated into his office, but was quickly distracted by Andrew pushing open the door to the outer court and track and revealing the inner plexiglass cube currently occupied by a single figure running rebound drills against the far wall.</p><p>Kevin looked up when the court doors slammed shut behind them, and stopped short. He panted heavily, slowly taking in Neil fully. His mouth hung open slightly in an unflattering way Andrew didn’t deign to point out, opening and closing like a fish as he struggled for words, all that media training gone in the face of the man he knew as Nathaniel Wesninski.</p><p>When he did speak, it was quiet, but the sound bounced off the harsh plexiglass and made it loud enough that they all slightly winced at the difference in volume. “You- I thought you were dead-“</p><p>“I almost was.” Neil interrupted, and Kevin seemed glad to let him take over his floundering attempts at conversation. “I went to the FBI, sold out what I knew. They pulled in my dad, he was killed in the raid. Though, what with the Ravens and all, I’m sure you know everything about that except that I was the whistleblower behind it.”</p><p>Kevin nodded dumbly, then collected himself. “Well, I’ve got to thank you, then. After Castle Evermore, the authorities were breathing down our backs. The Moriyamas cut me and Jean loose, because they knew funnelling money or using us for business would catch the cops’ attention.”</p><p>Neil muttered a ‘<em>you’re welcome</em>’ tersely. For a moment they just stood there, then Kevin started forwards. “Nathaniel-“</p><p>A shudder ran through Neil and he stopped him with a hand, “It’s Neil Josten now, officially. Witness Protection changed my name before they dumped me out here to get stabbed.”</p><p>“Nathaniel just hit too close to home, huh?” Neil nodded, and for Andrew’s benefit, said, “I’m named after my father. Nathan Wesninski.”<br/>And that, that was a name Andrew recognised. Not well, because he hadn't cared enough to research it, but with a degree in Criminal Justice it was unavoidable that a newly-discovered notorious serial killer and gang leader wouldn’t be eagerly discussed among his classmates on conversations he unfortunately had to listen to.</p><p>Kevin half smiled sadly, as if he already knew the answer to the question he was going to ask. “And your mom?”<br/>As expected, Neil swallowed and shook his head, but Kevin, like Andrew, didn’t look too unhappy about the news. Instead, Kevin ran a hand through his sweaty hair and looked at Neil with something like awe.<br/>“I never thought you’d make it, when we were ten and she ran with you from the stadium. You were tiny, and barely held your own in the tryout even though your life was on the line-“ at this, Neil scowled, and started saying “yeah, thanks Kevin, I’m an adult now though-“ before Kevin continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “-but I guess I should have known. You weren’t scared of Riko at all, and I didn’t even manage that at eighteen. DIdn’t even flinch when we watched your dad-“<br/>Kevin cut himself off again, and Neil looked quietly thankful. Andrew would get Kevin to fill him in on the rest of the story later.</p><p>If it were a movie, he thought, with the childhood friends reunited, this would be where they hugged it out. They were Kevin and Neil, though, wrecks with trauma on top of trauma- neither of whom had been raised to know how to interact with your brothers, and so instead Kevin jerked his chin at the lit up goal and scoreboard, held out his racquet, and said, “Want to play?”</p><p> </p><p>*************************</p><p>
  <em>After hearing all of Abram’s truths, Andrew can’t help but want to return the favor, somehow. Most of his own stories he cannot recount without crawling memories or nauseating terror, and the closed-off anger he drowns them in, but there are a few things he can safely share. So he decides on something safe, and easy, and tells Abram about one of the best places he’s ever lived.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I only moved here, with Tilda and Aaron, six months ago. Before that, I was in juvenile detention back in California. Her brother Luther put in a plea to get me released from juvie early, so I could return to my “<strong>stable home”</strong> with my “<strong>devoutly catholic</strong>” family.” He puts air quotes around the phrases, although from the venom in his voice, he was pretty sure it was unnecessary and that Abram might have got the message.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“And they agreed, because letting me go to Tilda meant they didn’t have to pay for foster parents or prison fees. Plus, dear old Luther’s a man of god.” This sneer, he didn’t bother to elaborate on, but the memory of the man sitting across from him at a metal table- telling an Andrew dressed in a green jumpsuit that ‘surely there must have been a <strong>misunderstanding</strong>’- was enough to flood him with anger again.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram waited until Andrew had finished, but didn’t let the silence linger too long in the air before he asked hesitantly, in a way he hadn’t done since the start of the summer, as if he thought Andrew would shoot his question down, “why were you in juvie?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The question was an easier topic than he realised. “I smashed the window of a cop car. I was in trouble enough at school, got in fights, was suspended loads, all that shit, that when I told the magistrate to go fuck himself he gave me more than the usual community service.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram quirked an eyebrow. “Were you... trying? To get locked up?” Andrew nodded, and Abram hummed thoughtfully. He didn’t ask why. “What was it like, in juvie?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Mainly dull- we had a library we could go to once a week, and a pool table, but they let you check out a few books at a time so I read through the whole pitiful collection pretty soon.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Abram chuckled, and nudged him with a foot. “What was the best thing you read?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew levelled him with a look that said <strong>don’t you dare laugh</strong> and muttered “Pride and Prejudice.” It didn’t work, because Abram dissolved into laughter, spending almost a minute gasping for breath while Andrew fought not to crack a smile because he absolutely refused to give the idiot the satisfaction.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Eventually, the idiot calmed down enough to adopt a serious expression and say, in a flawless London accent “Oh, Mr Daaarcyyy-“ </em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew shoved him and he dissolved into giggles again, while Andrew determinedly spoke over him. “AnyWAY, I beat up my roommate and they decided I needed to work my anger out in a productive way that still kept me away from people, so they made me be goalie on their Exy team. That way I just had to stand in my box and occasionally swing my racquet,”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Finally, whatever he’d said had made Abram shut up- and while he wasn’t going to admit how much he immediately missed the laughter, so unusual and carefree from such a skittish idiot, he also wasn’t going to admit he was worried by the way it had stopped so abruptly, so they stared at each other for a few seconds, until Abram broke it with a hesitant voice.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You play Exy?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>His hushed, almost reverent tone didn’t make sense. “Yeah. Why, you a fan?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Abram nodded, unnatural in a way that was too fast to go unnoticed. He seemed to realise his mistake, but when he admitted this truth, he sounded more secretive of it than anything else they’d admitted to each other sitting on top of this electrical box. “I’m not allowed to play. I used to, in the little leagues, and I even got to go to this audition-“ He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Mom says it would draw attention to me.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew spoke without thinking, like it was an instinct to want to give Abram anything in the world he wanted. “You’re about the same height as Aaron. I can borrow his racquet, he wouldn’t even notice.” Somehow, it wouldn’t even occur to him until that evening that there was no way Aaron would let him borrow his school racquet, or that he didn’t have his own one and would have to use his brother’s little league one that had Spider-Man stickers on it. Trivial things like that didn’t matter, not at the expense of Abram getting to feel normal for once. “I’ll bring them on Friday.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>A small, shy smile graced the Exy junkie’s face, as if he wasn’t allowed to let it out. Andrew thought they were past this, but he supposed not. He kicked Abram’s foot, and said, “your mom’s not going to know. You can play all day out here. I’ll even run around and be your goalie- and that’s a good offer, I don’t get gross and sweaty for just anyone!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The idiot smiled like Andrew’s somehow given him some brilliant gift, and Andrew couldn’t look away as Abram shrugs. “I love Exy. I wouldn’t draw attention, I’d just <strong>play</strong>, even if I had to do it badly to stay unnoticed. I have this whole binder of clippings, you know, I carry it everywhere, and really it’s to hide money and contacts, but mom let me fill in the pages to cover it up.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He pulls out the binder, and it’s kind of stalker-ey, but also kind of impressive, and with a twist of envy Andrew wished he was so obviously and easily in love with something as simple as Exy, rather than falling for a boy with a shitty fawn box dye and muddy green contacts. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Eventually, even Abram ran out of things to say about Exy and Kevin Day. Andrew filled the silence with the question that had been nagging at him, ever since Abram spread his life story at Andrew’s feet. “Why’d you tell me all of that shit about your life, earlier?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Abram shrugged. “It helped, I guess. I’ve never said any of it out loud before, and it’s just been... sitting here.” He tapped his head, then smiled ruefully. “It’s nice knowing that someone other than my mother might notice if I disappeared tomorrow.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You didn’t have to tell me your whole tragic backstory for me to notice you.”</em>
</p><p><em>Abram’s face cracked into a dopey smile that was painfully beautiful. His cheeks creased and a flush spread across his neck, but disappointment settled heavily in Andrew’s stomach when Abram shot back a retort and a laugh, then pushed off the electric box to inspect a squirrel that scatters away as he approaches. Andrew wasn’t sure how to mak</em>e <em>things any more obvious.</em></p><p>
  <em>He’d never spoken honestly to anyone this much, never told anyone else about his hopes. He would say things like <strong>that</strong>, blatant with meaning that had never escaped anyone else he’d tried them on- even if the others had been superficial compliments and with Abram, it felt like he was cracking his heart open and pouring it out at the other boy’s feet. And yet, he was oblivious. He wasn’t even pretending not to notice the innuendoes and flirtatious comments Andrew had been dropping for weeks, he just seemed genuinely oblivious. Like it hadn’t even occurred to him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Obliviousness was better than rejection, though, so Andrew just watched him pout as he tried and failed to lure in the squirrel with a protein bar.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>***********************</p><p> </p><p>A year later, when Wymack came to talk to him after his game and offered him a contract, his first thought wasn’t about keeping Aaron with him or the tuition bills signed away- although those he would demand later- it was about a boy with artificially green eyes who bought every Exy magazine he could get his hands on and smuggled them from country to country hidden in a duffle bag, away from his mother’s disapproving glares. A boy who kept a binder full of glossy clippings painstakingly cut from newspapers and printed articles and photos of ridiculous mascots.</p><p>He’d never even considered Exy as anything more than a distraction to pass the time in juvie, or a way to keep an eye on Aaron at school, until the possibility occurred to him that even though he couldn’t see Abram, maybe Abram could watch him from afar. That he’d know Andrew was okay.</p><p>So, when he’d presented three contracts to a tearful Nicky, who reached out for a hug he knew would be refused, he’d tried to tamp down the damning fact that if he was honest, he was thinking about Abram, wherever in the world he was, tuning in to a Foxes game and seeing Andrew. Maybe Abram would think about that summer, when he cut out a <em>Foxes 03</em> clipping to add to his binder.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Foxes found them like that, two hours later when they arrived to practice. Andrew hadn’t bothered to get changed out of the sweatpants he’d slept in, so he’s sat in the inner court with his back against the plexiglass wall, watching Kevin shoot on the goal while Neil watched his movements hungrily. The junkie had weighed Kevin racquet in his hands, and had swung it gently, but had come to the realization that Exy didn’t work with a stab wound that wasn’t even 24 hours old right before Andrew had needed to step in and confiscate it.</p><p>Allison stepped onto the court first, decked out in gear with her helmet tucked underneath her arm, and took in the scene appraisingly. Andrew glared back at her, too sleep-deprived after a night of panic, but as usual she didn’t take much notice. When the rest of the team joined her by the entrance to the court, she cleared her throat loudly, startling Kevin and Neil at the other end of it.</p><p>“So!” Allison tossed her expensive looking hair over her shoulder. “The monster has a friend!”</p><p>She was looking at him slyly, clearly fishing for a reaction, and Andrew was going to give it to her. The woman was annoyingly perceptive. He snorted, and gestured at Neil and Kevin- “I have an idiot with a stab wound and a stickball obsession, is what I have.”</p><p>Neil flipped him off, and turned to the team who were varying between mild curiosity (Aaron), eagerness (Nicky and Matt), and downright hostility (Seth, although Andrew doubted it was anything to do with Neil and was more likely to just be his resting dickhead face). He made an awkward attempt at a smile, one that pulled at the scars adorning his cheeks, and half-waved as he leaned against the wall next to Kevin and ran a nervous hand over the bandages under his shirt.</p><p>‘I’m Neil.”</p><p>Seth huffed. “That’s not what <em>he</em> called you yesterday.”<br/>Neil smoothed over his face and gave a perfectly perfected placating smile. “Yes, it’s my middle name- Neil Abram Josten. I’ve known Andrew-“ he cut off, glancing at Andrew as if to ask permission, and was answered with a vague gesture to go ahead. “I’ve known Andrew for a few years, and I used to go by Abram.”</p><p>Nicky’s brow crinkled. “He’s never mentioned you. When did you guys meet?”</p><p>Seeing Neil flounder, uncomfortable with the sensation of eyes on his while he answered questions after a lifetime of hiding every truth he had, Andrew interrupted loudly. “The summer Tilda died.”</p><p>Nicky’s pasted on grin faded slightly, and the worry line between his eyebrows deepened slightly before he smoothed it off with a laugh. “That must be why! I was in Germany, with my fiancé Erik, I didn’t come back down to South Carolina until the funeral.”</p><p>Renee stepped forwards, the first to approach Neil, and offered him a hand to shake. He took it; obviously uncomfortable, Andrew noted with amusement, because of course he’d see right through her pastel church girl look, with all that ingrained paranoia. She smiled serenely at him, graciously nodding her head in acknowledgment. “And I can see you’ve met Kevin, if you’re watching him do drills-“</p><p>Dan snorted. Neil apparently didn’t feel the need to inform any of them that he’d met Kevin ten years ago, and just let her interrupt Renee. “Yeah, great way not to scare him off, Kev, running precision drills at 7 am.”</p><p>Renee looked at her disapprovingly, and Dan raised her hands in surrender. “Anyway, what Dan means is that we’re glad Andrew has someone to talk to, and we’d love to get to know you while you heal up. You’re staying with Andrew, right?”</p><p>Neil flashed him a questioning glance, and he nodded as if it had been obvious, which it had been to anyone that wasn’t Neil. Andrew wasn’t going to kick him back to whatever shitty motel room the FBI had dropped him off in. The idiot was going to heal up, and then they’d talk. Andrew wasn’t going to hide how much he never wanted Abram to leave again.</p><p>Some of that line of thinking must have shown on his face, because Allison swooped back in like the vulture she was. “Well, you two must be <em>very</em> good friends. It was all very dramatic, blood all over my sofa, you and Andrew having a movie reunion scene.”</p><p>She was clearly looking for Neil to elaborate, but unlike Andrew he wasn’t about to cooperate. He blinked at her, and said, “Sorry about your sofa.”</p><p>Allison pursed her lips. “Uh huh. So, what I want to know, is why you came here, instead of a hospital or a plastic surgeon.” She waved an elegant hand at her own cheek, clearly indicating to the spot where Neil’s own flesh is a melted red. Andrew pushes off the ground and starts forward, but is interrupted by Aaron’s voice, angry in the way he always sounds when he’s trying to hide confusion or fear.</p><p>“Yeah, you couldn’t have gone to a hospital? You turn up out of nowhere, with a fucking stab wound, and me, the one who had to stop you from bleeding out until Abby got here; I’m the only one who seems to have an issue with it? I get we’re all amazed that Andrew has a friend, but what about the fucking scars all over him?’</p><p>Neil pasted on a benign smile. “It’s nice to see you again, Aaron.”<br/>The man in question deflated, and he just shook his head in defeat and muttered ‘whatever’. Neil’s words had sounded forced to Andrew, but no one else seemed to register anything but polite civility. Except Aaron, who, after a moment’s consideration snapped his gaze back up, bristling.</p><p>“What do you mean, see me <em>again</em>?”</p><p>He didn’t remember, Andrew realized.</p><p> </p><p>********************</p><p>
  <em>Andrew couldn’t believe he was still running around with a fucking Exy racquet almost a year after leaving the California Juvenile Correction Facility. He silently cursed the boy that had tricked him into volunteering to do <strong>exercise</strong> with his gorgeous eyes and pathetic longing for this stupid goddamned sport. Well, he tried to curse him silently- in reality, it involved a lot more loud panting and gasps for air than he was ever going to admit to anyone else.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram laughed at him slightly, taking in the pathetic sight of Andrew red and wheezing in the makeshift goal they’d set up between a stick and the car repairs book Andrew had almost finished. Andrew glared up at him, the fact that he was sore and tired taking up far more room in his mind at that very moment than how quietly impressed he was by Abram’s performance.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In juvie, he’d been so obviously better than everyone else that it hadn’t even seemed worth trying, most of the time. He hadn’t warmed up, hadn’t practiced, just stood in his goal and blocked shots he could see coming a mile away on game days. Some of the guys had been strong, and some had been fast, but there wasn’t much opportunity to improve on their shitty court with everyone wearing backliner gear because whoever had donated it didn’t know that all the positions had different racquets and armor. Still, none of them had held a candle to Abram. He was seemingly effortless in the way he’d run the length of their field twenty times to warm up, and then had landed every shot he’d taken.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It wasn’t really surprising, when Andrew had never put in any effort and Abram had been in little leagues when he was a kid and had been good enough to go to that “audition” he’d vaguely mentioned, but even more than that, the junkie seemed to live for the sport.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“How are you so good at this?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram shrugged. “Practice. Lots of it, when I was a kid, and I watch all the Raven’s games.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, you watched more than their games, idiot, you probably know Kevin Day’s shoe size!”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Abram nodded seriously, and said “Men’s size 12,” and Andrew couldn’t actually tell if he was serious or not. For all that Abram wore his emotions on his sleeve, he was an incredibly good liar, as he’d seen in action again an hour ago when he’d convinced the cashier in the corner store across the street that they would be practically dying of poverty and dehydration if he didn’t give them a free orange juice and the sugariest blue drink he had for Andrew.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now, he hesitated slightly, before he seemingly reached a decision and started to speak. “The audition I went to, it was with Kevin, actually. I don’t know why. My father had... <strong>business</strong> with Tetsuji, afterwards, but we were there so I could play Exy with the Ravens.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Business. The emphasis Abram had put on the word meant that it was probably off limits, and Andrew could only guess what that entailed.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“You think the team’s a cover for something, if your father was there?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram nodded slowly. “Maybe. My mom won’t tell me anything about it, or why I couldn’t stay with the team. We just packed up and ran, before the third day of practices started.” He shrugged, and Andrew stared at him in disbelief.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Seriously? They always gave off cult vibes, and now you’re telling me your mobster father took you to audition and to do <strong>business</strong>, and you don’t know why your mom ran?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram glared at him half-heartedly. “Oh, fuck off, I know that, logically, I just- I wanted to play Exy. And I had a shot, you know? I didn’t even get the chance, but I think I would have passed the audition. I could have been Perfect Court.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew snorted. “Yeah, I think you’d look great with a ‘4’ tattoo on your face. Riko Moriyama’s a fucking creep.” He flicked Abram forehead until the other boy cracked a smile, albeit a dejected one. “You’d look ridiculous next to Day and Moreau, anyway. You’re too short to stand next to them and not look stupid.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, you’re one to talk! I have at least three inches on you, Minyard!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The word stopped Andrew in his tracks. He took his hand back from where it had been propped easily behind Abram, scratching through the gravel at his side instead. He couldn’t help the wave of bitterness and reproach threatening to suddenly overflow, like a bucket brimming with his isolation, finally tipping over from an outsider’s easy assumption that Andrew was part of a <strong>family</strong>. The resentment wasn’t fair to Abram, who was looking confused, and concerned, because he was a fucking pipe dream, so Andrew desperately scrambled to force all that spillage across his psyche back into place before he spoke.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He gestured towards Aaron’s school racquet, cradled in Abram’s hands, and the word ‘<strong>Minyard</strong>’ written in his brother’s script on the taped label. Abram looked down at it, nails picking at the corner of the greyed tape, then back up at him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That’s not-“ Andrew swallowed, shame and anger burning him as he forced the words out between gritted teeth. “That’s not my name. Aaron Minyard, and Andrew Doe.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Abram was quiet, the teasing grin gone in an instant as he takes in the way Andrew’s hand clench, nails digging into his palm. He reached out, slowly, leaving time for Andrew to pull away, and grasped his hand when he didn’t, gently uncurling his fingers and running a thumb over the angry indents left behind before retreating back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Doe.” He said, and just from that word Andrew could tell he knew everything he needed to about the history of that name. The fact that it’s given to unidentified bodies, mysteries and abandoned children who’s parents didn’t even bother to name them when they dumped them on the foster system.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So he nodded, and watched Abram’s face twist into sympathy, and then, after a second, into sudden horror which was somehow simultaneously more and less bearable. At least he was used to it. “That’s not why you want to kill Tilda, is it?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And that, Andrew couldn’t have guessed. His face must have shown it, because Abram started speaking again, loudly, as if he was running a mile a minute with his mouth. “- because I get the feeling, from the fact that you spend all day sitting here talking to me instead of at home, that she’s absent and maybe not the most attentive, but I was pretty sure you’d have more of a reason than that, and I wasn’t going to ask- I don’t need to know at all, because we both have things we can’t tell each other and I know that sometimes there’s no way to resolve an issue without violence no matter what fucking normal people think, but- if her only crime is giving you up for adoption because she couldn’t take care of both of you, and then taking you back, I don’t think I can-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He hadn’t taken a breath more than once the whole time, and Andrew couldn’t think straight above the noise, but more than that he couldn’t bear the horrified panic on Abram’s face.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“<strong>Stop</strong>.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And he did. Miraculously, he stopped- maybe Andrew should have been used to this by now, the fact that Abram listens to his boundaries and doesn’t push, but he wasn’t. He’d revel in this feeling forever, if not for the fact that he was busy swallowing down the pain and anger that rose every time he thought of Tilda.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When he’s able to talk, he speaks quietly, the energy and anger seeping out of him as he finally returns Abram’s truths with some of his own. “It’s less that she gave me up and more what she did with the twin she kept. She didn’t want kids. She’s pretty clear about that, but Luther’s a pastor and guilted her into keeping Aaron for Jesus’ sake. He didn’t even know about me, she didn’t tell him she was having twins and just handed me off to the hospital staff because she ‘couldn’t take care of us both’.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He shook his head, disgusted. With himself or Luther or Tilda, he didn’t know. “When I went to juvie, I just- needed to get out of the foster house I was in. Aaron had found out I existed through a cop who thought he recognized me, and wanted to come visit. I couldn’t let that happen, so I got myself out before he could get there. I didn’t know that Luther would insist on taking me in and cutting the sentence short.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now, he took a breath, exhaling slowly, gearing up to say, “Tilda’s hooked on drugs. Pills, mostly, but there’s no shortage of bottles either. She gets loud, and angry, and hits Aaron. He doesn’t even do anything. Just stands there, looking blank. I think he’s doing Xanax, or something, or he’s been stealing her pills.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abrams eyes were icy flames. “Does she hit you, too?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew snorted. “She tried. Turns out a woman wasting away on booze isn’t too good in a fight against someone who’s spent their entire life needing to protect themselves. No, she pretty much ignores me.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was the truth- Tilda couldn’t never quite tell her sons apart until she got close enough to see the murder in Andrew’s eyes, and bristled at the sight, unused to being challenged about the drugs or the bruises she left from pinches on Aaron’s arms and bruises around his eyes. She’d come up behind him yesterday, asking about whether he had her sleeping pills, and had frozen at the sight of Andrew’s armbands, and turned around and left them in the shitty apartment to fend for themselves when it came to dinner.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram nodded, as if he understood. Andrew was sure that if anyone could, it was Abram. “What are you going to do about Aaron?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em><strong>I’m going to protect him</strong>, just like I promised, Andrew thought. He didn’t say that, though. Instead, his words were automatic, and resigned. “Aaron hates me. He hates that we’re nothing alike, that I threaten Tilda right back, that I actually follow through on my promises and expect him to do the same and take some fucking accountability,”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What did you promise him?” Abram’s question was soft, and it loosened some of the tension in Andrew’s shoulders. When Abram offered out a hand, palm up, Andrew let him take his hand and pull it onto his lap while he worked out how to answer.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Eventually, he settled on, “We made a deal- I’d protect him, and he would stay away from trouble. Apparently, we have different definitions of what trouble is.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>At the end of the day, maybe he and Aaron were just too different. They didn’t understand each other. Aaron chased the girls, and Andrew chased Abram around the makeshift court. Aaron had his family, a cousin Andrew had never met, in Germany, an Aunt Maria who made him tamales, his friends at school and the Exy team. Andrew didn’t even have a name.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He tried to voice this to Abram, the feeling that the only thing he had in common with his twin was his face, and Abram inspected the gravel beneath them thoughtfully as he ran a thumb over Andrew’s hand still in his lap.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The silence was broken a minute later, when Abram scraped a nail over Andrew’s palm and said, “You could join the Exy team with him. You’re pretty good, even without practicing for a year.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew was almost taken aback by how simple Abram’s suggestion was. It seemed too obvious, too surface level to make a real change to his turbulent relationship with his twin. His doubt must have shown on his face, because Abram nudged him with a smile. “You’d get your own racquet too, not one I’m guessing Aaron used when he was eleven, with all of those Spider-Man stickers.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew kicked his leg, and Abram smiled. The weird tension in the air wasn’t gone, not by any means, but for now Andrew just lifted the offending Exy stick and turned back to guarding his makeshift sticks and duffel bag. There was no chance he was letting the summer go without working out how not to make a fool of himself in the goal.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They played like that for another maybe twenty minutes, Abram running circles around him as Andrew dove to catch the ball and was sometimes even successful. He was so engrossed in the game, that it wasn’t until Abram stopped abruptly and stared over his shoulder that he even realized there was someone standing behind him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Is that my racquet?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Aaron’s words were slurred, and he was swaying gently on his feet as he peered, wide-eyed, at the stickers. He stared at it for almost a minute, a minute of Andrew’s heart racing for reasons he couldn’t explain. He wasn’t scared of Aaron, especially not in this state- although his anger rose at the sight of his twin obviously high off his mind, even more than that was the resentment that Aaron had somehow intruded on something private, something sacred, that Andrew had only ever found in this field with Abram.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When Aaron spoke again, he squinted up at Andrew. “Why are you using my kiddie racquet? Where’s the other one?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Silently, Andrew pointed at Abram, and watched Aaron do a double take.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Who’re you?”</em>
</p><p><em>Abram looked over at Andrew, examining his face slowly, and smiled wryly at whatever it was he saw. Andrew watched his two worlds collide, and couldn’t do anything but stand back, dazed and numb, until Abram shook his</em> head, <em>and said quietly,</em></p><p>
  <br/>
  <em>“<strong>I’m nobody, Aaron</strong>.”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This chapter has discussions of self-harm, and graphic descriptions of scars on both Neil and Andrew, so please don’t read if those could be harmful for you!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They hadn’t gone to see Wymack after practice, in the end. Neil had started to look pale again, the painkillers wearing off and leaving him hunched over and holding in his gasps until Andrew practically dragged him to the car. Instead, the coach had followed them with a token grumble that Andrew took no notice of. They headed back to Abby’s, with Andrew picking up a bag of clothes from his dorm along the way for both of them, considering he would be staying with the idiot until he’d healed enough to move and they’d figured out what to do next. That seemed like a conversation they should have.</p><p>A meal and three painkillers later, they were facing each other across from the table, not speaking, just watching each other. Neil was bouncing a jittery leg underneath the table, and Andrew stared pointedly at it, but the bastard just smirked and tapped his foot faster, knowing Andrew wouldn’t cave in and break the silence first to tell him to stop.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how long they would have sat there in a stalemate, if not for Wymack’s entrance with a bottle of whisky he thudded down on the table and a bag of pears he emptied carefully into Abby’s fruit bowl and arranged for longer than necessary. Andrew reached out an arm for the bottle, which promptly ended Wymack’s fussing as he smacked Andrew’s hand away.</p><p>“Off, Minyard, you steal enough of my alcohol as it is-“ he was met only with an unrepentant stare, so he offered the bottle to Neil, who gratefully accepted it- only to pour himself a few fingers of whisky and then slide his glass over the table to Andrew, who held it up in acknowledgment while Neil smirked.</p><p>Wymack watched the exchange with narrowed eyes and rubbed his temples. “Fucks’ sake, Andrew. Who is this guy?”</p><p>Andrew settled back with his glass of stolen whisky, and raised his eyebrows at Neil, letting him decide how much to say. Neil kicked him under the table, but swallowed and met the coach’s eyes.</p><p>“We met when we were sixteen, when I was in Colombia for the summer. I was put in Witness Protection pretty soon after I got these scars, and the FBI held me for questioning and then till I was eighteen, before deciding they’d dismantled enough of my father’s gang that it was safe to let me go.”</p><p>Wymack shut his eyes briefly, as if muttering a prayer, then opened them wearily. “They were wrong, I’m guessing.”</p><p>“Yeah, some low-level enforcers got me in an alley while I was scoping the area out, looking for Andrew.”</p><p>He said it nonchalantly enough that Andrew could almost see the tried-and-tested adopting gears spinning in his coach’s brain. “You play Exy, kid? Kevin told me you did, that you were pretty good, if you’re who he thought you were,”</p><p>Andrew took another sip, then butted in. “Neil taught me to play.”</p><p>Now that had stumped Wymack. He narrowed his eyes again, flicking between the two of them before seemingly settling on some conclusion unknown to Andrew. “Uh huh. Anyway, Neil, if you can play- especially if somehow you make Andrew want to play, too- I’ll see what I can do. The team will get the final say, and Dan will need to approve, but maybe we can find you something if the FBI have washed their hands of you.”</p><p>Neil nodded dumbly, his eyes wide and stupidly awestruck the way he always looked when someone did anything remotely nice for him. Andrew had hoped he would grow out of it, but apparently not. Wymack sighed, and Andrew could tell he was gone for the helpless-baby-doe act Neil somehow always managed to present, even unintentionally, that made everyone in his vicinity want to coddle him. It had got them free cinema tickets, free food, and even discounted cigarettes over the years, but Andrew certainly wasn’t objecting, especially not now when it meant a way to keep Neil with him.</p><p>Wymack grumbled something about a headache, then stood, snatching up his bottle. “Get some rest, Josten. I don’t want to see you for a few days, either of you.” He pushed his chair pack under the table and made his way to the door, stopping briefly as he grabbed the doorframe and turning back.<br/>“Andrew, I’m... glad you’ve got someone you trust.”</p><p><em>Disgusting</em>. True, he could admit, after Bee’s gentle prodding in her office in Reddin over the last year, but disgusting.</p><p>With that, Wymack backed out of the room. The kitchen was quiet for a moment, as the two of them let the implications of the conversation settle, before Wymack bustled back in to collect the bowl of pears. This time, they waited until his feet thudded heavily on the stairs up to where Abby was probably either fretting over her medical notes or watching Grand Designs again.</p><p>They were left facing each other, separated only by the expanse of table. There was quiet for a minute, while Andrew took in once again this new hair, the new eyes finally revealed for their true icy blue. Apparently, Neil was doing the same to him, because he gestured to Andrew’s armbands.<br/>“You’re still wearing the same ones.”</p><p>Andrew huffed. “They’re new, idiot. Bigger size. Besides, even if they were the same, some of us use washing machines.”<br/>“Right,” there was a pause, and Neil clearly wanted to fill it. He shifted in his seat, before coming round the table to sit on the chair to Andrew’s right, reaching out a tentative hand. “Yes or no?”</p><p>Andrew nodded, his heart thudding suddenly faster than it had in years. Neil didn’t move, so he whispered out a “yes”. The fingers tracing over his wrist were familiar, and he realised just how much he’d missed Neil, had missed having someone who knew all of him, scars and all, and had never shied away from them or gasped in horror. He felt frozen to his seat as Neil rubbed his forearm gently, then ducked his head to brush a kiss to the fabric.</p><p>He felt frozen, felt <em>seen</em>. That light affection was new, but it felt so <em>natural</em>, as if they’d never been apart.</p><p>Andrew shook himself, dragging his mind back to the present and the blue eyes watching every flicker of emotion on his face. He reached out his own hand, hovering it by Neil’s face, and muttered “Can I?”</p><p>Neil nodded, and Andrew let his hand touch, and traced a careful finger over the burn blistering his cheek. They’d done this before, though, so it was almost second nature to smooth his thumb over the lines carved along Neil’s jaw.</p><p>*********************</p><p>
  <em>Andrew felt oddly as if they were doing something illicit. Being in his apartment with Abram felt like running around in an school at night with all the lights off, or being in a shopping mall that was empty. It was exhilarating, somehow- his stomach fluttered with the thrilling possibility of getting caught, even though Aaron was at the cinema with a girl called Ashley and Tilda was at the job centre again. Abram seemed to feel it too, biting his lip to contain a cheeky grin as he gently shut the door behind Andrew and looked around the living room.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It wasn’t much. The sofa was old and dingy, the window was cracked, and Aaron’s deflated soccer ball peeked out from underneath the leg of the tv stand, where it had been jammed a few months ago to stop the cupboard rocking on the uneven floor. Andrew didn’t have any kind of attachment to the apartment, wasn’t going to add on “but it’s home!” after complaining about the lack of proper insulation. In fact, it was probably worse than most places he’d lived, because foster homes had to pass inspections to see if they were fit to house a child.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He checked the fridge briefly, then sighed. “If you want something to drink, we can go to the corner store.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram shook his head, but glanced at a apple that had probably been there for a week- were apples supposed to go in the fridge?- and then quickly glanced away again. Andrew fixed him with a look. “Take the fucking apple, idiot. You’re malnourished as fuck.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram didn’t move, so Andrew grabbed it out of the drawer and shoved it at him until he reluctantly took a bite. He turned away, leading the way to his and Aaron’s bedroom, and ignored the dark muttering he heard aimed at the back if his head.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The walls in here were painted an army green dating back to Aaron’s straight-boy camouflage phase at age 13, apparently, and it only highlighted the shittiness of the ikea furniture they’d found on the street and the bed in the middle of the room, with a pull-out mattress tucked between it and the wall. Abram took one look it it, eyes flicking between the black bedsheets on the pull-out, and the poster of Megan Fox, complete with a smoldering smirk and a low-cut shirt, above the twin, and almost choked on his apple.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Aaron makes <strong>you</strong> sleep on the pull-out mattress?” Abram wheezed out, banging a fist on his chest to dislodge the apple as he laughed.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew drew himself up to his full height of five foot nothing and sniffed indignantly. “How do you know it’s not <strong>me</strong> sleeping on the bed? Maybe I kicked Aaron out when he was busy being pathetic-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram snorted. “You’re telling me that’s your bed, with the large picture of Megan Fox’s boobs on it?” Andrew was immediately on the defensive, shoving away the part of his brain that was going ‘he <strong>must</strong> know, right? He knows I’m gay?’ In a way that was slightly obsessive. Instead, he raised his voice slightly louder than necessary to drown out both Abram’s laughs and his own swirling head.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hey, Megan Fox is great, she’s insightful and makes great points about feminism that Hollywood mocked because she’s ahead of her time, and it’s a disgrace that she was reduced to a sex symbol by the media despite how young she was when she <strong>should</strong> be recognized for how brilliant she can be as an actress when given good material to work with-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram raised a brow, and bit into his apple again, like the asshole he was. Andrew cut himself off with a blush, and clambered across Aaron’s bed to flop onto the pull-out. Truthfully, he hadn’t wanted the main bed; he liked to sleep with his back against the wall, tucked into the corner of the room and able to watch the door when he woke from a nightmare. Abram walked round the edge of the room, but came to sit next to him as well, discarding the apple core on the way.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hey,” he said, settling down beside Andrew, propped against the wall with his knees hugged to his chest. Andrew lolled his head over to look at him, but didn’t move other than to reach out a lazy finger and poke Abram’s hands were they were clasped around his legs. Abram sniffed, and jabbed back at his cloth-bound forearms as if he was swatting a fly. Andrew hid a smile in his pillow, and they sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, with Abram taking in the room while dragging a lazy finger back and forth over Andrew’s armband.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Eventually, he broke the silence, plucking at the edge of the black fabric. “Why do you wear these?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew froze, stiffening as the question hovered in the air. Abram must have felt his discomfort, because he dropped Andrew’s arm and didn’t object when Andrew dug his head out of the pillow and sat up to face Abram, hands crossing over his chest protectively.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The sickened, twisting feeling from earlier was back again- only now it wasn’t the thrill of illicit sneaking around, but the sinking-stomach pull of being caught. He swallowed, weighing his options. He could play it off; lie, tell Abram the same bullshit he told Aaron; he could stay silent, avoiding eye contact until he sighed and dropped it; or he could stammer through a confession, and pray it wouldn’t get him into trouble.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew weighed the options. His gaze snapped to Abram quickly, than back again just as fast at the sight of those stupid fake green eyes wide with nerves, and the panic in the idiot’s eyes as he fussed with his lower lip. He made a decision, then. Abram knew something was wrong, knew he’d overstepped, but he wasn’t <strong>pushing</strong>. If Andrew never told him, he wouldn’t shout or whine.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It went against every instinct he’d learned in foster care and juvie, every lesson he’d got wise of after being told “I won’t get mad if you tell the truth” too many times and having that promise immediately broken, but Andrew decided that for once, maybe the risk was worth it. He slid a fingernail under the cloth, toying with the fabric for a second, then folding it back before he had a chance to change his mind, and quickly peeling off the armband on his other wrist.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram leaned forward, brow furrowing, and then moved back so fast his head clipped against the wall when Andrew shifted and the light caught on the ridges of silvery scar tissue marring his skin. He let out a small noise of pain at his own idiocy, then quieted as he met Andrew’s eyes again. Abram broke first, eyes stuttering away to inspect the bedsheets closer than was necessary instead. Andrew didn’t look away, though, so Abram swallowed and flickered his gaze back up, whispering his words.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“I didn’t realize- I should have asked, I’ve been touching-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew reached out a hand to cover his mouth. “Shut up, junkie.” It was his turn to look away now, unable to handle the earnest apology, and now that the easy bit was said it took him a few moments to gather his words.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You don’t need to apologize. If I didn’t want you touching me, I’d tell you to stop, or shove you away. Just like if I didn’t want to talk to you, we wouldn’t be sitting on my bed, idiot. I don’t mind. It’s... it feels nice.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And it did. Abram was easy to be around, easy to trust, easy for Andrew to allow him to run careless hands over his arms, easy for Andrew to <strong>want</strong>. These things, he didn’t manage to say, but maybe Abram understood anyway, because he reached out a tentative hand, and slowly let it rest on the lines that striped down his skin when Andrew nodded.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram ran light fingertips over his arm like it was something delicate, something to be careful with, and Andrew shivered at all the careful attention he didn’t know what to do with. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to soak in this new feeling for almost a minute until Abram broke the reverent silence.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Do you still-“</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Abram cut himself off, and it was obvious that this was unchartered territory for him. His face spoke of bewilderment, but also an open attempt at understanding that Andrew couldn’t bear to look at. He shook his head, and Abram relaxed slightly, tracing the lines of his wrist one more time before settling back against the wall and waiting for Andrew to continue.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So he did. “I stopped when I went to juvie. By the time I came here, and had access to razors again, I didn’t- didn’t need to.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram nodded slightly, then started to worry the hem of today’s disgustingly ugly oversized t-shirt between he fingers. “I’ve got scars too, you know. Not like yours, but from my dad, from his enforcers.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew could see where this was going. “I don’t need you to show me, this isn’t an exchange, Abram, you don’t have to-“ He made an aborted gesture to pull Abram’s hand away from the bottom of his shirt, then stopped when he waved him away.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No, I know. But I trust you, Andrew, and you trusted me enough to show yours.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>The statement was simple, and Abram said it without hesitation, as if he wasn’t shattering everything Andrew had ever known and leaving him to gape, stunned in the wake of such revelations. Abram trusted him.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>In fact, Abram didn’t seem to notice the way he’d reduced Andrew to a dazed mess at all. He grinned awkwardly, rubbing an unconscious hand to his shoulder, and cracked a joke.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours, right?” Abram smiled, and Andrew blinked, flooded even more with equal parts utter confusion and trepidation. <strong>Does he know what that means?</strong> With Abram, there was no way to tell- he could be finally acknowledging Andrew’s quite blatant flirting, or he could be cracking a stupid joke that had no business being funny. It wasn’t funny. Not at all.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His mind was already running too fast for him too keep up, and that certainly hadn’t helped, so when Abram messily pulled off his shirt, wriggling his arm out in a way that was endearingly awkward, Andrew couldn’t do anything except stare.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was so much better and so much worse than he’d imagined.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram was thin, his skin stretching over slim shoulders and ribs Andrew could count, but he didn’t look unhealthy- just... as if he only ever ate just enough to keep him going. There were hints of muscle at his abdomen and biceps, enough to be visible, especially with how little body fat he had.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But that wasn’t the first thing Andrew stared at. He’d look at the lines of muscle and elegant bones later, but for now he was confronted with the scarred, twisted expanses of skin that spanned Abram’s body. The cuts were sporadic, random, deep and shallow, from bullets and blades and irons. They were a sobering reminder of the trauma of Abram’s childhood, and Andrew couldn’t help but swallow down the bitter fury that rose in him at the sight.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What made it so awful was the color. Andrew’s own scars were ordered, parallel, slightly raised lines that had left his skin a silvery white. Abram’s hadn’t been administered with such care. They were red and angry, puckering his flesh and pulling skin into twists and lumps as it had tried to stitch itself together. Some were fresher than others, marring him with crimson burns and a wasteland of gashes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram shivered slightly under Andrew’s gaze, and he dragged his eyes back up to his face. For all his bravado, Abram was biting his lip, hands obviously itching to cross over his chest. Andrew reluctantly turned away, coming to sit next to him instead. He left his wrists folded in his lap, and didn’t bother to move when Abram eyed them as closely as he’d been eyeing his torso.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Why d’yo do it?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew scoffed. Like there was an easy answer. The question was such a cliche, he almost felt disappointed in Abram for being like every love interest in an angsty movie, every high-school guidance counsellor and every awareness video that got it all wrong. But this was Abram, who wasn’t judging him, wasn’t angry- just watching his face closely, openly looking for nothing more than to understand. So Andrew swallowed the automatic resentment, and tried his best.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I was surviving, I guess. It gave me... control, over my body. It was enough that I was able to keep going, not end it all.” It wasn’t enough, not even close to describing the mess of emotions and so many goddamn <strong>feelings</strong> that had battered Andrew non-stop in the Spear house. But it was all he could give, at the moment.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So there they were, on a pull out bed with a poster of Megan Fox watching over them, scars laid bare to each other. The moment felt almost religious. (Thinking that at all was probably sacrilegious, especially when a poster of a woman in a bikini was presiding over their sermon instead of the Virgin Mary, but then Andrew had always had a healthy amount of contempt for the Catholic Church. He had no intention of ever making Luther proud of him.)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Still, Andrew couldn’t help feeling slightly uncomfortable at being so exposed. He shoved his arms under the duvet, balling it up on his lap, and stuck out a foot to poke at Abram’s leg.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“How the fuck do you run manage to run around so long, when you have that little body mass, huh? Without muscle, where does the power behind your swings come from?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram shoved his foot away with a laugh, and pulled his shirt back on. “You’re just mad I’m better at Exy than you,“</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Andrew squawked. That was <strong>blatantly</strong> untrue. He didn’t care about Exy, he just wanted to know the secret to having Abram’s seemingly boundless energy. The junkie sized him up again, then let a devilish grin creep up his face. “You’re mad Aaron’s buffer than you, too-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew lunged for him, and Abram scampered away while he tangled himself in the duvet. That wasn’t true, at <strong>all</strong>- except, he realized with dawning horror, that it probably was. There wasn’t enough of a difference between them to be noticeable, especially with the way Aaron hunched in on himself most of the time, but one of them spent the whole year round on the Exy team and the other had just learned how to look intimidating enough that no one fucked with him. The pills had fucked with Aaron’s head, but if anything, they’d made him gain weight. Of course Abram would notice, with the way he sized everyone he met up in seconds, weighing out his chances in a fight.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram bit his lip to contain his laughter at Andrew’s obvious horror, and Andrew decided right then that he was going to stick with Exy practice as long as was necessary until he was just as good as Abram at Exy and had significantly more muscle mass than Aaron.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>For now, though, he glared at Abram until he had the grace to look slightly apologetic, then gave up on detangling himself from the blankets and flopped back onto the bed, turning his head to face Abram. He mulled over the choices they could take to pass the time before Tilda got home at dark, and settled on, “Want to watch Jennifer’s Body?”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>First of all, thank you so much for sticking with this through my online-school-induced absolute lack of motivation, which is a terrible combination when having to live under the same roof as my mother 24/7- I’ve been pretty hectic recently, and I hope this chapter is the first step in getting back some order and time to enjoy writing this, which I do really enjoy!<br/>It’s extra long as recompense, about 6k words, which is twice as much as some of the early chapters eek, and as always has not been beta read or even properly read through for spelling errors, so I apologise for any mistakes you might find! I find what works for me is writing things without stopping to read over it, and then editing when the work is finished.</p><p>Trigger warnings- mention of child abuse, PTSD induced nightmares</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>**********************</p><p>
  <em>The paperwork stuffed under his mattress was burning a hole through Andrew’s mind. No one knew about it- he didn’t quite know why it mattered to him that no one knew, but it did. He wanted to tell Aaron when it was done, proudly present the certificate of legal name change as a sign that he was <strong>trying</strong>. They were so much better than they’d ever been, right now, since Andrew had joined him on the summer pre-season Exy practices and they’d spent more time being forced to work together than ever before. After the last practice, Aaron had given him the ‘bro-slap’ all the stupid jocks on the team took part in. Andrew had nodded carefully when his twin had hitched a ride back with Ashley and invited him to ride in the back- they hadn’t talked, but it was something.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Part of him never wanted to show Aaron the paperwork at all, in case the trepidation and fragile peace they’d been building up crumbled back to the scraping mess it had been at the start of the summer, but that part was small and easy to force back and lock away at the back of his mind. Most of him was.... excited. If that was what you could call this, the nervous, queasy feeling that never quite went away with the lingering knowledge of filled-out boxes ready to be approved waiting for him under the foot of his makeshift bed. It was apprehension, definitely, but Andrew didn’t think it was a <strong>bad</strong> feeling. For once, he was ignoring the part of him that whispered that Aaron would throw it back in his face, and was instead picturing that maybe, just maybe, Aaron would smile instead, and recognize this for the gesture it was. A gesture that said <strong>I’m sticking with you</strong>.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He liked the sound of “Andrew Minyard.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew didn’t show his excitement, nervousness, apprehension, whatever it was, on his face, but he was pretty sure Abram could tell anyway. The air today was filled with a tension, a buzzing excitement, and somehow, the feeling that this was <strong>before</strong>. Andrew wasn’t sure what was coming, or what was ‘after’, but he was ready for it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He hadn’t told Abram about the name change, either. He wanted it to be a surprise, he decided- he’d tell him after it was finalized and he could truly say he was no longer a Doe, unidentified and unwanted.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Although, in the last few days, Abram had been drawn; still grinning, endlessly thrashing Andrew in goal, although he was steadily improving on a diet of determination to be as good as the junkie, and pure spite when it came to being better than Aaron, but he’d seemed sad and almost longing when he zoned out, not realizing Andrew was still watching his face.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’d opted out of joining the Exy team with Andrew, saying his mom wouldn’t let him and that he was ‘probably going to go to a different school nearby by the time the new school year started’. Andrew wasn’t quite sure why, but he wasn’t going to press it, not when Abram looked so withdrawn and upset every time he arrived to the field in the mornings.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Now, they weren’t playing anymore, just laying stretched out in the pitiful shade provided by the trees lining the very far side of the field. It was too hot to sit on the electrical box, its dark color only absorbing the heat even further. They were far enough away from anyone else here, the kids’ playground near the road and the little corner shop all the way across the field, so Andrew had stripped off his sweat-soaked t-shirt and armbands and used them as a makeshift blanket over the worryingly grey-looking grass, and Abram had kicked off his shoes and was toeing the dry South Carolina dirt with a grimace.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“God, it’s too hot here. I spent last summer in Birmingham, and it was awful, of course, because the weather’s only good for like two weeks of summer in England, but at least I didn’t feel like I was melting all the fucking time.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew vaguely hummed his agreement, then lolled his head over to face Abram, who wrinkled his nose at him and smiled. “Yeah, but California was worse.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That wiped the smile right off Abram’s face. He tipped his head up to stare at the sparse leaves, then shuffled closer to Andrew’s side and muttered, “Mom wants to go to California.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Soon?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram looked quickly at him again, then shook his head vehemently. “No, no, just... at some point.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew relaxed. “Okay.” They lay there, kind of staring at each other, and Abram pulled Andrew’s arm onto his stomach and drew mindless circles over his palm and down to his shoulder, while Andrew toyed with his shitty fawn hair that was getting far too long.</em>
</p><p><em>For anyone else, the time would have drifted away, and he would have lost track of the world as he closed his eyes and let the summer heat wash over him, but Andrew’s brain wouldn’t let him do that- although, he didn’t mind, for once, because he silently planned to keep this memory cherished, nestled away in a safe, secret corner of his mind where it could neve</em>r <em>be ruined. Time didn’t run away from him, but he was perfectly content with that, for once.</em></p><p>
  <em>Abram was the first to break the silence. “Have you ever kissed anyone?”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>It’s unexpected, but Andrew certainly doesn’t mind. He considers his words, then carefully says, “yeah, a few times. Why?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t know. I kissed a girl when I was twelve, back in Germany. She was called Greta and she had purple lipstick on.” Abram didn’t look up at him, just focused intently on the patch of Andrew’s skin he was tracing. Andrew wasn’t really sure where this is going, so said,</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Was it good?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram shook his head. “Not really. Lipstick doesn’t taste as good as I thought it would, from looking at it, and my mom was really mad afterwards. She made me promise never to go near girls, said they would sell me out in a second if they knew who was after us.” He scrunched his nose at the memory, then shuddered as he shook it away. He nudged Andrew’s side. “What about you?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew considered his options quickly. He’d given every possible hint under the sun without outright telling Abram he was gay, and at this point if the other boy didn’t know, then Andrew’s comments about ‘idiots’ might have more merit than he was actually intending them to. So he went with it, blurting out his answer in a disorganized mess he cringed at as soon as he’d finished.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“The first time I enjoyed a kiss was in juvie, with the boy I was rooming with. It was good, but a bit messy. He was a bit of a dickhead, though. There were better ones, mainly with the boys that were actually gay and wanted to kiss me, rather than just wanting to kiss someone who was there.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Right.” Abram blinked, absorbing the information. He didn’t comment on the pronoun, and Andrew couldn’t help but feel slightly ridiculous in the face of how little Abram seemed to care about something he’d been working up the nerve to admit for weeks- he stopped that train of thought in it’s tracks, because Abram was doing the thing again, where he had something to say but was biting his lip instead, and Andrew absolutely couldn’t handle that right then, so he shoved the idiot’s head slightly.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Stop that. What is it?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram scowled, wrinkling his nose at Andrew and imitating him mockingly, but then he stopped and took a breath instead, replacing the teeth worrying his bottom lip with the tip of his finger running over it as he eyed Andrew. “Want to do it again?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em><strong>Oh my fucking god</strong>, was all Andrew could think. Vaguely, somewhere in the mess of swirling fragments of thoughts was the worry that maybe Abram was just experimenting again, like he had with Greta in Germany, but he shut that down with the line of reasoning that if Abram’s experiments hadn’t gone well, he wouldn’t do it again, right? Even if it was just experimenting, even if Abram decided it wasn’t for him, it would be worth it, Andrew decided.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There was nothing he could do but nod, his shoulder digging into the buttons of his shirt where he’d laid it out beneath him. <strong>God, why the fuck did he think it was a good idea to take his shirt off, earlier?</strong> He felt far too exposed, like a live wire thrumming with energy and nowhere to direct it, but he wouldn’t stop this for anything. So he just reached out a hand to lightly rest on Abram’s jaw, moving with it as Abram leant in to lightly brush a kiss to his lips. It was soft, and barely-there, and god, Andrew wanted more. He watched Abram pull back, concern written in the way his brow furrowed, so he gently wiped away the junkie’s worry with a finger, leaning back in when Abram smiled in return.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The ground was hard, and they weren’t even close to being comfortable lying twisted on their sides to face each other, but Andrew could ignore that for how easy it was to lose himself in Abram as he leaned forward again to press their lips together, the kiss slowly opening and angling deeper as Andrew grasped Abram’s jaw.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Once again, Andrew couldn’t help but be thankful for a memory that wouldn’t let go of the seconds he spent. He was almost painfully aware of every moment he lay here with his soul laid bare- except not at all, because this wasn’t painful in the slightest. Abram didn’t hurt him, didn’t keep taking when Andrew finally pulled away to rest their foreheads against each other. Nothing about this hurt, and it was just as much a novelty to Abram as it was to Andrew, apparently.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’d enjoyed kisses before, that much he hadn’t been lying about- but in juvie there had been an undeniable undercurrent of violence, of danger, that he realized now he hadn’t enjoyed at all. With boys who just wanted to get off, there’d been resentment and almost hatred as they’d pressed against grimy walls and panted into each other’s mouths. With boys who were just like him, exploring for the first time, there was a defiance, a need to make it out on top, as well as the panicked thrill of getting caught. Violence had been so intertwined into his experiences with kissing, even the ones he’d chosen, that he’d never even noticed its presence.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But this, with Abram, was so devoid of anything but softness and curiosity, inexperienced enthusiasm and earnestness, that Andrew was almost startled by it. This wasn’t a competition, wasn’t a game, was just reverent hands running over sandy hair, over scarred arms, over Abram’s neck and Andrew’s jaw.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When they broke apart, they lay panting, Abram turning a dopey grin onto the canopy of leaves above them. Andrew didn’t quite let himself smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched undeniably. Abram caught his breath, then lolled his head to the side to face Andrew again.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“We can do that again, right?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His voice was unsure, but hopeful, full of emotion Andrew didn’t even have an inkling of how to express as loosely as Abram did, bleeding his heart out and trusting Andrew to put him back together. He didn’t know how to say it, so he just nodded instead, and was graced with Abram’s flustered grin in return.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Good. I liked it.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Abram could have left it there, but apparently a kiss that Andrew would need the next few hours to absorb properly hadn’t even managed to quiet his hyperactive rabbit brain for more than its duration. No, the idiot had to break the post-make-out haze by talking about fucking <strong>Tilda</strong>.</em>
</p><p><em>“We’ve got to do it before the end of summer, Andrew.”</em><br/><em>Andrew didn’t quite follow why, but Abram didn’t seem to want to explain either, shaking off his questioning</em> <em>look noncommittally, and continuing, “you’ve got all the paperwork to file for legal emancipation ready, and we know how to manipulate the particular model Tilda drives, but you need to take a moment when she’s too high to care about, or too distracted to notice all the noises it’s going to make after we tamper with it, and pick a situation where she’ll be driving fast. The engine needs to get hot enough to melt the metal- which, when we’ve shaved it down to a thin wire, won’t be very hot, but I’m not sure how predictable it’ll be so preferably she needs to drive as fast as possible. That way, when it snaps and the engine power gets cut suddenly, the momentum and loss of control should be enough to spin her off the road.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Andrew had heard the outline of this plan twenty times before, so he suspected that Abram was simply repeating it to soothe his frazzled nerves, but he nodded again, just as he had all the other times, and dutifully recited his own section.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll steal her lithium prescription- that one’s legit, and she can’t go without it, so she’ll rush to the clinic that we get the cheapest care from, the one in August County- it’s thirty minutes down the highway.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram nodded approvingly, thoughtfully, then changed track entirely, blurting out, “I want to show you how to use a knife.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew quirked an eyebrow, and waited for the junkie to explain.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“My dad- when he still thought I might one day follow in his footsteps, he and L- the woman who helped him dispose of bodies, afterwards- taught me how to use them.”</em>
  <br/>
  <em>It wasn’t surprising, considering every other tidbit he’d learned about Abram’s abysmal childhood, but he filed away the violence Abram’s family had inflicted upon him, to rage about later with no one around to witness how much he couldn’t stop feeling. For now, he kept his face a practiced neutral, perfectly impassive as he asked,</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“You’ve got them with you?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wasn’t sure where this was going, or why Abram thought he needed to learn how to use knives, so he stayed quiet as Abram nodded, eyes flicking to the road Andrew knew led to the apartment he and his mom were staying in. He’d never seen it, never gone near after Abram had told him it wouldn’t be safe if his mom saw them, but he’d pinpointed the location in his mind as the place Abram arrived from in the mornings looking weary and on-edge.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Guns are too conspicuous, usually- my mom always wants me to have a weapon on me in big crowds or cities, and she says I might as well put the skills I learned to good use.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His voice was altogether too tentative for Andrew’s liking, eyes darting away from Andrew’s, and the way he’d spilled out his thoughts and censored them as he went didn’t help his case. It was like Abram had spooked himself by veering the conversation too close to his father, and now was clumsily trying to keep plowing forward, trampling over his fragile nerves in the process. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Andrew reached out a hand to cup the back of his neck, and Abram shuddered at the touch, pressing back into his palm as he collected his thoughts. Eventually, when the heart rate thudding under his fingers calmed somewhat, Andrew said,</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“You don’t have to, junkie. Seriously, if it’s going to hurt you-“</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram snapped his gaze up to look at him, anger bristling under the surface. His heart rate quickened, as he rushed out with- “I’m more worried about what happens if it all goes wrong, Andrew, and you need a way to protect yourself and Aaron.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And that, somehow, was unexpected. Andrew really should have known better, from a paranoid rabbit like Abram, that he would have contingency plans on top of contingency plans- he was suddenly filled with a rush of gratitude that the other boy hadn’t let him enact his own insane plan, all those weeks ago. Abram must have misinterpreted his stunned silence for rejection, though, and pulled away from Andrew’s hand.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Look, if you don’t want to, that’s okay, I just don’t think the way forwards is to pull your punches. Knives are effective, easy to pick up, discreet- hell, you could fit them in your armbands, the ones I’ll bring tomorrow.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He was worked up, ears tinged with pink as he stumbled over words a mile a minute, and that managed to surprise Andrew even more than the idea of someone caring enough to push through their own obstacles to give him, <strong>Andrew</strong>, the best chance at protecting himself. His question came out more stunned, more disbelieving than perhaps he had intended it to, but for once Andrew didn’t close up and shy away from revealing the vulnerability behind his words.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Why does it bother you so much?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram shook his head, looking just as incredulous at Andrew’s words as Andrew had been at his. “Because it does, okay? You matter to me, Andrew, and I want you to be safe.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He shrugged slightly, ducking his head away and muttering out the first words until he mustered up the nerve to look Andrew in the eyes. “I want you to be happy, Andrew. I want you to have more than Aaron to build your life around.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And that, that struck a nerve. Before Aaron, he hadn’t had anything but Cass. And then that letter had arrived, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was keeping this twin brother he’d never met safe, keeping him away from Drake, keeping him away from the Spear house. He’d thrown himself into keeping Aaron’s life together as a way to escape his own crumbling to pieces around him, and sometimes it had worked, sometimes it hadn’t. He hadn’t even fulfilled his promise to Aaron- not yet, anyway, not when Tilda was there screaming her poison at his twin, who was drugged to the gills and unable to do anything but blink as she raged.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’d built his life around Aaron, it was true. Hell, at the start of this summer he’d been willing to drive himself off the highway at top speed just to give him a chance at something better than this life with Tilda.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram tugged at the hem of his giant, faded shirt. “Sometimes- most of the time I think you’re okay, because we’re making fun of people, or playing Exy, or talking, or- or kissing, and I think you’re great, but then one of us mentions Aaron and you suddenly can’t think about anything else. I know you’re worried about him, Andrew, and that you can’t help him until Tilda’s out of the picture, but sometimes it’s like you think your only reason to exist is to fight for him.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And that was it. It wasn’t something he’d ever consciously verbalized, or even thought coherently, but as soon as the words were out of Abram’s mouth Andrew couldn’t help but be glaringly aware of how true they were.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Realization was bitter on his tongue, so his words came out coated in venom when he spat out, “He needs it.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram groaned in exasperation. “Maybe he does, and that’s okay, but I- I want you to have something other than Aaron to live for.” He looked like he was ready to tear his hair out, and Andrew just wanted to forget this conversation had happened and go back to kissing him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But kissing Abram, couldn’t that be something he wanted to live for? Wasn’t this something he’d built his life around, these endless days spent talking, joking, playing Exy with a shitty racquet? Andrew swallowed the defensive anger he’d wrapped himself in long enough to realize that for once, right now, Aaron wasn’t his priority. And so he said, “I do.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Apparently, Abram didn’t understand his confession for what it was, because he exhaled sharply in frustration. Or maybe he did, because his words came fast and messy, as he said, “That’s not enough, Andrew.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I want this-” and he gestured between them, “- too, but this isn’t enough to live for! If something happened, if I had to leave, if my father caught up to me, I need to know you’d be okay. I need to know that, alright? So I don’t care what it is, anything that can make you happy, whether that’s Exy, finger painting, or a fucking puppy- but promise me that if I was gone, if Aaron was gone, you’d keep going!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The urgency took seemed out of place, but Andrew wasn’t going to question it too hard, when Abram’s demand allowed him to return a similar ultimatum.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>“Only if you’ll promise me you will too.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Abram stopped his tirade abruptly, as if running into a glass wall he hadn’t seen coming, and Andrew used the silence to plow on. “I know that you’re running, surviving, but as soon as you get the chance, I want you to do what makes <strong>you</strong> happy. Not wearing t-shirts for bands you don’t like, and throwing knives you hate to keep me safe, and uprooting your life every time your mom demands it.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was as if around Abram, everything messy in Andrew’s head became crystal clear. The realization of the way he would have destroyed himself for his twin, the sudden knowledge of exactly what he wanted for the first time in his life, all of it was pulled out and laid bare before a boy made of lies and littered with scars.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He continued, his tone matching the urgency he hadn’t understood when it was present in Abram’s words earlier. “And I know, Abram, I <strong>know</strong> you have to, but- when you get the chance. Do more than just survive.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Once the words were out, the wind was gone from his sails, and apparently from Abram’s, too. He nodded, tongue tied, then cleared his throat and rushed out his words. “Sure. I promise.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Finally, the tension seeped from Andrew’s shoulders. It felt like freedom, it felt like surrender, when he nodded back, and said, “okay, then. I promise, too.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>*****************</p><p> </p><p>They’d spent most of the last week at Abby’s, with Neil stretched out on the guest bed and Andrew having dragged his mattress onto the floor beside it with some assistance from Matt’s truck (and Matt’s muscles, too, when he and Seth had hauled it up the stairs to the second floor as Andrew surveyed the scene). They’d never slept in the same room before, other than Andrew falling asleep a few meters away as they’d lain on the grass that summer, after nightmares had kept him up the previous night; now, he was discovering that their nightmares took different forms. Andrew’s were silent, and he woke from them at the slightest shift of Neil on his bed, the slightest creak of a floorboard outside, with nothing louder than a gasp.</p><p>He’d been known to wake up punching when people had nudged him out of sleep, or had ripped away blankets, but by and by his nightmares went unnoticed and unheard by his roommates, and were ignored other than sleep-addled grumbles about “how fucking creepy he looked sitting on the beanbag in the corner of the room in the middle of the night, does he just sit there watching us?”</p><p>On the other hand, Neil’s nightmares were explosive. The first night, he’d started begging for someone called Lola to stop doing something, voice raising to a scream before Andrew shook him out of it. They’d spent the rest of the night curled together against the wall, as Neil divulged the story of her particular brand of punishment. He hadn’t looked any better for it, afterwards, hadn't experienced any of the catharsis they’d both felt revealing their scars to each other, but Andrew was happy to talk about whatever they could latch onto to keep them awake and out of their heads.</p><p>Neil woke up with tears in his eyes, cries on his lips and a voice run haggard, some nights.</p><p>Today, they’d managed to get through to the morning without incident. Neil could sit up fine now, could mainly move like normal although it came with a lot of wincing and Abby’s stern warnings to stay in bed. Neil had been itching to get out of the house for days, so Andrew had begrudgingly offered to walk around the block with him, picking up some items on Abby’s list since they’d been busy eating all her food.</p><p>Bee was coming over for dinner this evening, which was why Abby needed special ingredients, and Andrew didn’t know quite how to feel about her meeting Neil. Other than Kevin and Abby, and sort of Wymack, the junkie hadn’t met any of the Foxes properly, for more than half an hour. Andrew was very much enjoying the absence of the noise and drama, and suspected that they’d been warned off by coach, and while he knew he’d have to introduce at least Aaron and Nicky soon, he almost didn’t want to share this part of himself.</p><p>Neil, Abram, Alex- whatever he’d been calling himself, he’d left his mark on Andrew’s life. He could play the summer they’d spent together back like a movie, and maybe that was the issue; it felt like a movie. The memories felt dream-like, preserved only in his consciousness, and it felt off-kilter having the star of that movie appear in this new life he’d built for himself. The foxes were loud, boisterous, abrasive, and he was slightly worried that they would meet Neil’s own jagged edges head on, leaving everyone bleeding.</p><p>Neil didn’t seem to have any of the same worries. His greatest concern right now seemed to be not being allowed to go back to the court or run laps around the neighborhood like he clearly wanted to, and he was practically bouncing off the walls. Which is why they were currently standing in a local grocery shop, as the idiot put way too much thought into his choice of tomato sauce.</p><p>“Do you think Abby meant to-go sauce, the kind you can just pour into pasta, or the stuff thats just tomatoes that they use on pizzas?”</p><p>Andrew shrugged. “She’s making lasagne. Lasagne sauce has meat in it, right? So maybe the pizza one, and she’s going too add shit.”</p><p>Neil pursed his lips. “Yeah, but Americans put ricotta in lasagne. I don’t know what sort of concoction she’s making.”</p><p>“You’re American, idiot. What the fuck’s wrong with ricotta?”</p><p>“Are you serious? Everything, Andrew. The Italians would kill you. I mentioned ricotta lasagne offhandedly in Sienna once, I thought I was gonna get jumped- and they were right! The real stuff is better.”</p><p>“Pfft, the Italians don’t know shit. They’re anti-deep-pan-pizza” Andrew did like deep pan pizza, but he’d be lying if he said this argument wasn’t happening just so he could enjoy Neil getting riled up.</p><p>It was working. He looked like he was considering throwing the two jars at Andrew’s head, but restrained himself to just blinking in disbelief. “Do you hear yourself? The Italians don’t know shit about lasagne?”</p><p>Andrew used all his self-control to stop his lip twitching. “Pick a jar, or we’ll just get them both.”</p><p>Apparently, that was the wrong answer. Neil shook off the humour in his face, and pushed both of them back onto the shelf. “No, that’s okay. I’ll just- ask her when we get back, go out again later.”</p><p>He turned away, pulling down the sleeves of his shirt- Andrew’s shirt, because the junkie couldn’t keep wearing Wymack’s- and Andrew caught him by the shoulder and nudged him back round to face him. “Don’t do that to my shirts, you’ll stretch them. I have money, Neil. I can afford to buy you clothes that don’t make you look homeless, and I can afford to buy two jars of tomato sauce.”</p><p>Neil avoided his eyes, then sighed and leaned back against a display of boxes of rice. “I don’t need you to, though. I have money, not much, after the FBI confiscated everything they could, but I’ve got the sales of all the assets they couldn’t prove were criminal. Stuart sends me cash sometimes, and that’s definitely criminal. He’s trying to bribe me back to London to “get to know the family”.” He laughed dryly, half-heartedly poking at a bag of rice.</p><p>“You also having money doesn’t explain why you don’t want to buy tomato sauce.”<br/>Neil didn’t meet his eyes, and Andrew softened. “Look, I know what having a complicated relationship with money looks like. We never had any of it- the difference is that now that we do, I’m blowing it on sports cars and you’re hoarding it like you always had to. Issues, Josten. We’ve both got them.”</p><p>Neil lightly glared at him, slumped down as he was against the display to meet Andrew’s eye level. “Fine. Buy the tomato sauce.”</p><p>Andrew flicked the side of his neck and Neil swatted him away, but the hint of amusement was back in his eyes, so Andrew held out the basket for him to drop the jars into. He jolted at the added weight, and Neil smirked at his annoyance as they made their way to the counter, where a girl of about sixteen checked out their items as she kicked her heels rhythmically against her stool, in time to the music playing across the shop’s tinny speakers.</p><p>They made their way back, going the long way round through the park to, in Neil’s words, “make the most out of the daylight”. Andrew didn’t protest too much, seeing the junkie’s lit-up eyes, but he made a token grumble about the late-January chill. They hadn’t had snow, but despite all his complaining about the California heat Andrew was not suited to the cold much, either. He usually layered up with two coats this time of year, but Neil was wearing his slightly thinner one, and seemed fine, the bastard.</p><p>In fact, he seemed so fine that he was actually walking off the path and leading them in a loop around the park, waving a hand decorated with an orange mitten Bee had knitted for Christmas at the shitty play area ahead of them.</p><p>“Want to go in?”</p><p>Andrew stared at him. “Why would I want to go to a kids playground in winter, Neil. Or at anytime, for that matter.”</p><p>“Humor me.”</p><p>And well, he couldn’t say no to that. So he climbed over the fence- which came up insultingly high up on him considering it had been designed for five year olds- and abandoned the shopping bag at the foot of the wooden structure in the middle that Neil was scaling. He was lucky that it wasn’t wet, and that it was midweek so all the kids were in nursery.</p><p>They settled onto the covered platform at the top, leaning against the wall and facing the entrance to the slide. After a few seconds of indecision, Andrew leaned against Neil’s side and let their heads rest against each other. They’d been experimenting with this kind of casual touch since the first night at Abby’s, and while it didn’t have the easy fluidity it had once held, Andrew hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it. Every brush of their arms was deliberate and thrilling, and he was sure everyone could see through the flimsy pretense he’d put up, pretending it didn’t send sparks rushing through him.</p><p>Here in a park, especially, he couldn’t help but wonder whether Neil was trying to bring back some of the memories they’d made in another shitty South Carolina park.</p><p>And maybe he was right, because Neil spoke first, sighing loudly and exhaling to watch his breath fog in front of them. He didn’t hold back, either, but then that was to be expected- he was skittish and silent with people he didn’t trust, and bluntly honest with those he did.<br/>“Did you keep your promise?”</p><p> </p><p><em>Had he found more to live for?</em> He found the answer immediately, when he dared to ask himself the question. “Yes.”<br/>Andrew was almost glad about the fact that the position they’d put themselves in meant he could avoid Neil’s eyes, because as much as therapy had done for him these last few years, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to be this vulnerable while letting someone watch him. Once he started naming them, the things he lived for spilled out of him one by one, a mess of all the things that had built him up and put Andrew Minyard together.<br/>“I’m doing criminology, and everyone thinks its a joke, but it’s not. I don’t mind Exy, except when Kevin’s the one teaching it. There’s Nicky, and Bee, and Wymack.”</p><p>Neil nodded, and the shifting made Andrew’s head fall off his shoulder, so they faced each other instead. “Thank you. I’m- happy for you, Andrew.”</p><p>It was a promise fulfilled, one end of a bargain held up. The other still wavered in the air between them, and Andrew was the one to voice it, pressing forward with, “and are you happy?”</p><p>Neil twisted his lip ruefully, shrugging as if to say, <em>I was hoping you’d forget about that</em>, but took a few seconds to sort out his words before he spoke.<br/>“I haven’t been, but... maybe I could be, here. I like Abby and Wymack. I don’t even know if you’d want me to stay, or if they’d let me on the team, or if the Foxes would like me, but.”</p><p>He ended the sentence with a full stop, knowing Andrew would hear every bit of meaning behind that but- a future where Neil stopped running, a future of casual touches that sent a thrill up their spines every time, a future with two cats, near a bookshop in a city. Maybe a future on an Exy court, with the family Andrew had found in Kevin, Nicky and Aaron, and the family he’d begrudgingly built with the foxes.</p><p>And he did hear that meaning, every bit of that dangerous, disquieting wistfulness. His voice was gruffer than he intended it to be, when he said, “don’t be dense, Neil. I’ve only just got you back, I don’t want to you to leave again.”</p><p>The idiot’s sharp intake of breath sent a rush of panic through him for a second, until his face split into a wide grin, and his eyes glinted with almost desperately giddy happiness. “Say it again.”</p><p>Now it was Andrew’s turn to smile, a tiny, almost imperceptible thing that no one but Neil and Bee ever noticed. He reached out a careful hand to graze the junkie’s jaw, and said his words softly.<br/>“I want you to stay, Neil Abram Josten.”</p><p>Then they were both grinning at each other like idiots, and Andrew hadn’t felt this light in years. He traced the hand on Neil’s jaw to his lower lip, and asked,“yes or no?”</p><p>The answer, when it came, was an emphatic “<em>yes</em>”.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Thank you!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thank you all for your kind comments on my disclaimer that this fic was not abandoned, which I’ve replaced with Chapter 6- almost 6k words, which I hope sort of makes up for the fact that its about 2-3 weeks late!<br/>
I’ve had to post this little announcement of chapter 6 as a new chapter so that it actually shows up as having been updated, but I will be deleting this in a few days, so if you’d like to leave a comment (every single one of which I love and reread a million times!), please do it on Chapter 6!

I have exams at the moment, but I finish in two weeks and I’ll have plenty of time to get back to writing!</p><p>Thank you all so much for sticking with this and your kind words, let me tell you they were the motivation I needed to get back into writing as something I enjoy and this story as something I’m fully motivated about!</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!! If you like it, please leave a kudos or comment because it really brightens my day to know people are enjoying my creations!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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